An Historic Screening of Rothstein's First Assignment

An early screening of Rothstein's First Assignment was held at Woodberry Forest School.  My intention for the screening was that it be for the residents of Madison County and the community of Woodberry Forest.  I wanted to update the faculty on my latest project, giving them the chance to view it before it went out to the festivals.   But mostly, I wanted the residents of Madison County to see the film since it was largely their story.

Most of those who appear in the film are from Madison County.   The majority are descendants of Rothstein's subjects.  Without their help I  couldn't have made the film.  To thank them I had made a point to invite them to the screening so that they might see the film.  As Woodberry Forest is in Madison County, it was the perfect venue for them to see the film.

On the night the film was to screen, there were problems in getting things set up.  For some reason we were unable to get the sound to work.   After working on this for over an hour we ran out of time and were forced to run things through my laptop.  This created its own problem as I hadn't brought my charger.  After getting the film started I had to rush home to get the charger for fear that the battery would die in the middle of the screening.  Because of this we were unable to do a proper sound check. 

As a result,  I was not ready for my first questioner.  I had barely finished apologizing for our sound problems when I was confronted by a very angry spectator.  From the beginning he challenged me on a number of aspects about the film.  No matter my answer, he was  never satisfied.  For what seemed like a long time, his challenges kept coming.  

Eventually the audience grew impatient and requested that we move on.  Most of them readily accepted my findings and wanted to know more.  They knew the story better than I did as it was their story.  It was a story they had been waiting a very long time to hear.


One man in particular asked me if I knew about the graveyard up at the institution in Staunton.  At what is known as Western State or the DeJarnette Center in Staunton, Virginia, there are unmarked graves.  Though the film barely touches on this facility at Staunton, I knew that at least one of Rothstein's subjects had been sent there. Visiting it myself and photographing the graves, I  was disturbed by it.  Though the facility is closed, the stories still circulate about what went on there.  Many locals feel it is haunted.  My questioner himself had a sense of urgency.  I sensed that there was much more I should know about the activities at Staunton that might connect to my film.

Yet before I was able to explore this, my first questioner reasserted himself and began to challenge me again.  He told me that I didn't have proof.  That I was making statements that I couldn't support.  Things started all over again. 

At about that time a woman from the audience spoke out and came to my defense.  Sitting at the back of the theater, in no uncertain terms she confirmed what I had uncovered.  She said straight out that it did happen.  That yes, children were sterilized.  

What I didn't know at the time was that the man who was challenging me was sitting with Rothstein's daughter, Annie Segan.  He was Annie's friend and they had both driven down from NYC to see the film.  I didnt know this because they hadn't told me.  I'm not even sure how they found out about the screening.  Not even my friends in neighboring Charlottesville knew about the screening.   

What I also didn't know was that the woman who came to my defense was the wife of the great-grandson of the man at the center of Rothstein's project.  She knew the true story of what happened to Rothstein's subjects because she had married into the family.  Though Rothstein had written on his caption that this man's great grandfather was to get a new home from the government,  the story I uncovered was that he had been institutionalized at this Staunton facility.  I even found a document stating that he was buried in one of those unmarked graves.

It took awhile for the importance of the screening to sink in.  As a photographer myself, I had sought to attend to Annie.  I knew very well the importance of her father to my profession and I felt somehow responsible for her well being.  I had not wanted her to see the film.  Had she asked me, I would have told her not to come. 

Yet I couldn't deny what I had found while making the film.  There were too many levels of confirmation.  I was skeptical in the beginning.  I even tried to disprove it.   What I found challenged my own understandings of a profession I have both taught and practiced.  But I would only be fooling myself if I denied it.   I couldn't look away,  not with all the evidence I had unearthed.

When the events of that screening finally sorted themselves out, I  realized the historical nature of the event.  For probably the first time since 1935, I had brought together those impacted by the events defining Rothstein's assignment.

That Annie's friend Brodie had challenged my film so strongly, while the wife of a descendant of the man at the center of Rothstein's project had come strongly to its defense spoke volumes.  When I later recognized this descendant he said to me "I told you you were going to stir up a hornets' nest." 

To see footage of this event click here for my student, Peter Chen's, documentation of it.