Historic 1946 Photograph Reveals Community Hops Harvesting Tradition in Maryland

The recent availability of A. Aubrey Bodine's 1946 photograph "Harford County Hops Farm" provides significant historical documentation of agricultural practices and community traditions in post-war Maryland. The image captures a unique moment where crop harvesting transformed into a social event, with seventy-five guests invited to participate in harvesting hops from long poles brought in from the fields.

This photographic record is important because it illustrates how agricultural communities maintained social cohesion through shared labor activities. The participants successfully picked seven bales of hops before enjoying a picnic lunch together, demonstrating the integration of work and community celebration in mid-20th century rural life. Such documentation helps historians and agricultural researchers understand the evolution of farming practices and social structures.

The photograph gains additional significance through its creator, A. Aubrey Bodine, who was regarded as one of the finest pictorialists of the twentieth century. Bodine's work transcended typical newspaper photography through his artistic approach to documentary subjects. He studied art principles at the Maryland Institute College of Art and treated his camera and darkroom equipment as creative tools comparable to a painter's brush or sculptor's chisel.

Bodine's technical craftsmanship involved experimental techniques including working on negatives with dyes, intensifiers, pencil markings, and even scraping to achieve desired effects. He photographically added clouds and performed other manipulations, believing that like painters, photographers should select features that suit their sense of mood, proportion and design. His philosophy that "he did not take a picture, he made a picture" represents an important artistic approach that influenced photographic practices.

The accessibility of this image through www.aaubreybodine.com allows researchers and the public to examine an important piece of Maryland's agricultural history. The website contains more than 6,000 photographs spanning Bodine's 47-year career, providing comprehensive documentation of Maryland occupations and activities during this transformative period. For those interested in deeper study, the full biography "A Legend In His Time" by Harold A. Williams, Bodine's editor and closest friend, is also available at www.aaubreybodine.com.

This photographic evidence contributes to our understanding of how agricultural communities maintained traditions while adapting to post-war changes, making it valuable for cultural historians, agricultural researchers, and those studying the evolution of rural American life.