At the age of 15, Dox Thrash left his native Georgia and moved to Chicago, eventually enrolling as an evening student at the School of the Art Institute and working as a janitor during the day. An innovative printmaker, he coinvented the carborundum mezzotint process while employed on the Federal Art Project in Philadelphia. In this print, he utilized carborundum crystals (more commonly used for grinding lithographic stones) to roughen the surface of a metal plate, which resulted in deep black tones. The lighter areas of the design were then recaptured when the artist used a burnishing tool to smooth the plate.