 This is a work that I find really interesting because even though it's really an everyday scene there's a lot of Maybe kind of misconceptions that feed our interpretation of this work So I'm interested to see what you can make of it What's going on in this picture? There are no men. There are no men So it's all women and what else? How can you tell that they're fighting? Some girls yelling at her wearing red and all little girl on booze or hands on her hips You can tell they're fighting So the artist gives us some really clear body language You know the girl in the red top sort of leaning forward mouth wide open The other girls have kind of squinchy faces It seems like school Like hair-strapping their kids off or picking their kids up or something Gosh, moms don't look real happy So there's not any sort of bright smiles on one of these faces How about the scene as a whole? What do you think the mood of the picture is? Could it be Sunday? I don't think it could be Sunday That's the mother has a flower on her tail Could it be Sunday? Without looking at the title, we're just going to give it away How can we tell if it's a school related thing as your first thought or a Sunday like a church perhaps? There's no religious imagery in it A couple of them have books but the books are different colors and they don't say Bible There's nothing that looks churchy There are no crosses Is that a graduation? It's a lot top but if you look at it closely, it's not a mortarboard. It's a fancy hat They're all wearing dresses They're all wearing dresses Yeah Where are their husbands and sons and brothers? Could it be a Wednesday? I'm going to a Wednesday event this weekend Could it be Wednesday? Someone mentioned there are no churches in the background Can you identify any types of buildings in the background? I don't know, I'm a school So which part looks like a school and has each other? Left But a lot of churches are in schools I went to school, I went to church in a storefront So back then I don't see a storefront But I used to go to church here in Maryland Well, in Maryland in a church, a school So I think it's probably a school or a church event So it doesn't necessarily have to be a school because people don't always go In an urban setting, always have access to a church building They do church in different buildings I think their skirts are too short Some of the evidence I hear for school is this fence is built Maybe to control people to keep them in So maybe the playground is inside the fence As you said, there's no men It's all women and female children The clothing will throw your students off They're not used to an everyday scene where everyone is in dresses Or everyone is dressed up What else is going on? What else can you find? It really reminds me of Baltimore With the red brick and the stoops And the federalist architecture The obvious thing to me is that there are black and white children And there's a bright central There's an African-American woman Holding the hand of an African-American child And what appears to be a white child That has her arm wrapped around that woman Okay, it seems to me Is it the African-American women Are the ones caring for the kids? Maybe the moms So the adults Unless I'm getting stronger All African-Americans are the ones I'm going to see No, do you see who I'm going to see? Yes, but there are children There are Caucasian children Well, what would the Caucasian children be with their nannies? As far as what would they be nannies? Are they nannies or what other roles could they be filling? If it's a school scene The teachers If this is a school, what do we know about the school Based on the people that we see? All girls It's mixed It's not serious by race, just by gender I don't know, African-American people are always in college So when I see someone who's lighter I don't understand why That's true, sometimes you can get into dangerous sounds I'm not saying they aren't at this point We can leave it as an open question mark Certainly children with Just literally white Not even Peach colored Because that girl with her panda Stands out to me She's waving That's almost designed To draw your attention Notice me It's the title of schools out So whoever said end of the day Whoever said school, those are born out by the title It's 1936 What part of the country would we imagine this To be You said it looks a little like Baltimore It's got to be in the north Why does it have to be in the north? Because of the integrated School And why does it have to be a big city How can we tell that about the environment? Because of the federalist architecture And that's a lot of people A lot of people don't see that Many children of that age In a small town school One of the reasons that we always put the sort of Birth and the death dates And locations of the artists Try and give you a sense of where the scene might be And what their background Knowledge is Alan Rohan quite spent most of his life in Boston So we think In a basic interview with him This is a South Boston school in 1936 And if you look at the history Of segregation in the schools Because he is an African-American artist This is an African-American show That the schools were desegregated in the 19th century But the neighborhoods weren't So because the schools were Organized by neighborhood They were still vastly majority African-American school or white school So here you see maybe a few Who either are Light-skinned or white But certainly the majority Are African-American