Photographer Robert Dorksen was born in Cleveland, Ohio and worked as both a freelance photographer and frequent contributor to the Sunday Magazine of The Cleveland Plain Dealer. His work, focused principally on average people in pursuit of work as well as pleasure, has been widely recognized and displayed at galleries in Cleveland, New York, and Los Angeles.

Dorksen created the images for Strength Enough, a portfolio of photographs of working men and women published in 1980 by the Cultural Arts Committee of the United Labor Agency and the Western Reserve Historical Society, supported by generous grants from local cultural organizations. For those of us old enough to remember, these sensitive portraits memorialize the people who fueled the dynamic post-World War Two economy.