SALT OF THE EARTH [1954] Photo archive

[Los Angeles: 1954]. Set of 8 vintage original mostly 8 x 10″ (20 x 25 cm) black-and-white photos: 7 with mimeographed text on verso, one with holograph notes about film and date stamp on verso. Overall near fine.

Salt of the Earth was one of the first motion pictures to advance a feminist social and political point-of-view. Its plot centers on a long and difficult strike, based on the 1951 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, New Mexico. The company is identified as “Delaware Zinc”, and the setting is “Zinc Town, New Mexico”. The film shows how the miners (most of them Latinos), the company, and the police react during the strike. Shot in a style influenced by Italian neorealism, and making atmospheric use of New Mexico’s landscapes. The film employed mostly local miners and their families as actors.

The film was written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman and produced by Paul Jarrico. Because all three men were blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their alleged involvement in communist politics, Salt of the Earth was one of the first fully independent films made outside of the Hollywood studio system. The film was also initially mired in Red Scare controversy and was suppressed. Eventually though, it was seen by more and more people until it came to be recognized as an important cultural, political and aesthetic work. In 1992, it was selected to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry of significant U.S. films.

The story revolves around the character of Esperanza Quintero, a miner’s wife in Zinc Town, New Mexico, a community which is essentially run and owned by Delaware Zinc, Inc. Esperanza is thirty-five years old, pregnant with her third child and emotionally dominated by her husband, Ramón Quintero.

The majority of the miners are Mexican-Americans and want decent working conditions equal to those of white or “Anglo” miners. The unionized workers go on strike, but the company refuses to negotiate and the impasse continues for months. Esperanza gives birth and, simultaneously, Ramón is beaten by police and jailed on bogus assault charges following an altercation with a union worker who betrayed his fellows. When Ramón is released, Esperanza tells him that he’s no good to her in jail. He counters that if the strike succeeds, they will not only get better conditions right now but also win hope for their children’s futures.

The story of the suppression of Salt of the Earth, as well as the people and labor struggle it depicts, inspired an underground audience of unionists, feminists, Mexican-Americans, leftists, film historians and labor scholars. The movie found a new life in the U.S. in the late-1960s and early-70s and reached larger audiences through union halls, college campuses, art houses, women’s associations and film schools. (Wikipedia)

Because the film was itself effectively blacklisted from showings in U.S. cinemas, it received an extremely limited distribution, and any ephemera from it are terribly scarce.