Adams, H. (1939). Ploughing it Under Inaugural Show: Painting Gallery of Associated American Artists, New York. [Digital image]. Retrieved January 19, 2017, from http://www.thomashartbenton.org/ThomasHartBenton/Artwork/Paintings/
My interpretation of this image was that it was a farm worker, employed because of the color of his skin and kept to manual labor work which was very common, and on top of that he was trying to plow land that looks extremely infertile, similar to a desert in appearance.
Thomas Hart Benton was the first painter to really venture into the deep South in search of what he wanted to represent in his art. He did this as a response to Roosevelt's legislation, the New Deal. He wanted to see and fully experience the situations on the farms, so he went to witness the cut back in production by the agriculture industry to boost the prices.
In the first painting I included by this painter, he had travelled to Greenville, South Carolina, and among devout followers off Christianity he found the subjects of his painting representing people's leaneance on the faith during hard times. His second painting feautures an African- American man working hard on a farm with a mule and dusty land.