He was a member of a wealthy and well-connected industrialist family, and was able to support himself while funding a series of literary and artistic endeavors.

He published a book by poet Edgar Lee Masters, and made a documentary about mining that has been of interest to scholars.

Dick is best known for the photographs he took on behalf of the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression, and for the violent circumstances of his death.

[4] Only one volume bore his name as an imprint: a book of poems, The Serpent in the Wilderness, by Edgar Lee Masters, published in a fine-press limited edition in 1933.

[5] It was large (8½ by 12 inches) and made with obvious attention to detail, but with some mistakes, the worst of which was the accidental binding of manuscript pages into some copies; the reception was mixed.

"[9] Roy Stryker, head of the Information Division of the Farm Security Administration, collected a large group of photographers in the mid-1930s, including well-known artists like Walker Evans and many who were far less experienced, with the goal of documenting the times and the nation itself.

Stryker attempted to provide some guidance for the kind of photographs he was looking for, writing to Dick, "It is terribly important that you in some way try to show the town against this background of waste piles and coal tipples.

Critic Collen McDannel has pointed out that, particularly in regard to his treatment of religion, Dick's work is different from most of the FSA file.

[16] He decided to return to the area to make a documentary film about the effects of silicosis on the region, but did not receive approval for the project from the FSA.

[17] The result was a 16½-minute documentary film, narrated by the actor Will Geer, and consisting of both moving images and Dick's photographs of the region and its people.

[20]Dick's film proved to be his most influential effort; it is cited in modern scholarship on the region's history, and his photographs of the miners and their families were displayed in a New York gallery to positive reviews.

The film, written and photographed by Dick and with narration by Storrs Haynes, depicts the efforts of a community nursing service operated by the Henry Street Settlement in New York.

The New York Times reported that, "Other than the 'temporary insanity' theory advanced by [the medical examiner], investigators were unable to establish a motive for the shooting."