Houston Ship Channel (Loading Cotton)

Jerry Bywaters' two scenes depict dockworkers at the Port of Houston during the Depression. New Deal artists often chose to paint subjects of people engaged in productive work, in order to provide a visual message of hope that better times were ahead. For his contemporary scenes of the Port of Houston, Bywaters represented dockworkers loading cotton and oil. At the time, the Port of Houston led the nation in the handling of cotton and petroleum products.

Loading Oil depicts two dockworkers hooking up hoses to the control valves, which will allow them to transfer oil from the pipeline to the tanker. This painting illustrates the importance of the oil industry to Houston and the state of Texas. By 1940, Texas was established as the leading oil-producing state, and has remained so ever since. Loading Cotton shows a wharf scene of workers loading bales of cotton onto a cargo ship. Cotton has been an important cash crop for Texas since the nineteenth century. Still today, Texas leads the nation in cotton production.