Urban Poverty

A Manhattan Landscape with Figures

by Ida Ableman

Like much of Abelman’s work, this lithograph criticizes the effects that technology and business can have on nature and human life. 

A group of people, nervously glancing around at their surroundings, huddle together under a streetlight; they are bordered on the top by the elevated railway, and the back of the image is dominated by imposing buildings. 

The flowers and apples the two women in the front sell have been taken out of their natural context and are instead being used commercially.  The intricate floral design adorning the streetlight further demonstrates the assimilation of natural life into an unfeeling technology. 

(Pohl 27-8)