University Museums is trying to keep its exhibitions relevant to students.

Instead of keeping its exhibitions abstract, its first exhibitions this fall will rotate around an integral part of Iowa life: the farm.

Lynette Pohlman, director and chief curator of University Museums, says the themes and ideas for the exhibitions usually come from the museum staff, but many times are decided upon request from what’s happening in the classrooms around campus. Such is the case with several exhibitions this fall.

“The Depression era prints and the farm life [prints] are being used in history classes and English classes as teaching tools,” she said.

Several exhibits at the moment are meant to coincide, since they touch upon similar subjects.

“The American Scene: Rural Images from a Turbulent Era” introduces images that depict life on the farm during the Great Depression while John Bloom’s “Post Office Mural Cartoons” allows viewers to see two large-scale preparatory drawings for murals the artist painted in the DeWitt and Tipton post offices.

“Farm Life in Iowa Photographs” by A.M. “Pete” Wettach works with “The American Scene: Rural Images from a Turbulent Era.” On loan from the State Historical Society of Iowa in Iowa City, this exhibit features 30 photographs from negatives taken in the 1930s and 1940s.

These photos illustrate and honor the daily lives of farmers during the Depression.

The photographs illustrate social and technological change, but more importantly honor the daily lives of Iowa farmers during the Great Depression and World War II.

Wettach, who originally traveled to Iowa from his home in New Jersey with hopes of becoming a farmer, decided to settle in Mount Pleasant in 1930. Working as a loan officer for the Federal Farm Security Administration, Wettach would take his camera with him when he visited clients throughout southeast Iowa.

Wettach died in 1976.

Most photographers for the Farm Security Administration chose to point out the negative effects the Depression had on the farmers. Wettach viewed his subjects in a different light, however. Longing to show a more positive, hopeful side, the optimistic photographer captured the heroism and confidence of the hardworking farmers.

Pohlman says the collection accompanies not only “The American Scene: Rural Images from a Turbulent Era,” but also the overall theme of the exhibitions.

“We brought that in to complement what we were trying to do with our permanent collection talking about the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s,” Pohlman said.