PHOT 154, History of Photography, Grossmont College, Documentary photography, Farm Security Administration, FSA, Walker Evans, American Photographs, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke White, LIFE, Gordon Parks, August Sander, Photography and Science, Robert Capa, Normandy Invasion, WW2, Magnum Photo

1. Documentary Expression & Popular Photography
The Great Depression in the United States
• Longest and worst economic collapse in the history of the
modern industrial world.
• Lasted from the end of 1929 until early 40s.
• There was a decline in the production and sale of goods, and a
severe rise in unemployment.
• Businesses - banks - closed. People lost jobs, homes, savings.
• Many people depended on charity to survive.
• Many Americans spent more than they earned, farmers had to
deal with heavy debt and lower prices for their goods.
• The effects of World War 1 (1914-1918) caused economic
problems in many countries. Europe was struggling to pay war
debts.
• These problems-and the resulting weak economy-contributed
to the major crisis that started the Great Depression - the
U.S. stock market crash of 1929, which financially ruined
thousands of investors.

2. Dorothea Lange, Line Up at Social Security, 1930s

3. In 1935, the US government turned to various agencies for help
in fighting the Depression. In 1937, the Resettlement
Aministration became part of the Dept. of Agriculture under the
title of Farm Security Administration (FSA).

4. Right: Chief of Historical Section of FSA, Roy Stryker
The goal was to show America a desperate situation and to
gain support for President Roosevelt’s new programs:
grants, loans and resettlement money to displaced farmers.
“Was it journalism? Yes and No. Was it history? Of course.
Was it education? Very much so. If I had to sum it up, I’d
say…we (the FSA photographic corps) succeeded in doing exactly
what…we should do: we introduced Americans to America.”
-- Roy Stryker

5. Lange, Migrant Farm Worker, 1939

6. Arthur Rothstein, Dust Storm, Cimarron County, OK, 1936

7. Rothstein, Steer Skull, 1936

8. Rothstein, Field Workers,
1936

9. Walker Evans, Houses and Billboards, Alanta, Georgia, 1936

10. Walker Evans, Roadside Store, LA, 1936

11. Evans, Bud Fields and Family, 1936

12. Evans, Tenant Farmer Bed, 1936

13. Evans, American Photographs, 1938

14. Evans, Roadside Restaurant, 1936

15. Evans, Sign, Torn Movie Poster, 1936

16. Evans, Negro Barber Shop, Atlanta, 1936 1936

17. Evans, 1936
Evans was concerned that his photographs not be
considered ‘propaganda’ or ‘political.’ When he
accepted the FSA assignment, he wrote a note to
himself which read “..Never make photographic
statements for the government. This is pure record,
not propaganda.”

18. “I do have a critical mind, but I am not a social protest
artist, although I have been taken as one very widely.
You’re not, and shouldn’t be, I think, trying to change the
world, saying ‘Open up your heart and b;leed for these
people.’ I would never dream of saying anything like that.
I believe in staying out of the way.” -- Evans speaking to
an audience of Harvard students.

19. Dorothea Lange, 1934

20. Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936

21. Lange, Migrant Mother alternate view, 1936

22. Lange, Migrant Mother alternate view, 1936

24. Dorothea Lange, Ex-Slave, Alabama, 1937

25. Lange, Cotton Picker, Near Eutaw, Alabama 1937

26. Lange, One Nation Indivisible, 1942

32. Lange, Pacific Railroad,1937

33. Lange, 1937

34. Dorothea Lange at work, 1940s

35. Ben Shahn, Cotton Pickers, Pulaski County, Arkansas, 1935

36. Shahn, Unemployed Miner, Arkansas, 1935

37. Russell Lee, Child of Migrant Worker in Car, 1939

38. Gordon Parks, Ella Watson, American Gothic, 1942

39. Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930

40. Parks, Newsboy, Harlem, 1930s

41. Parks, Fashion for LIFE, 1949

42. Parks, Muhammad Ali, 1970
Parks’ photo essays highlighting African American
issues and leaders from a cross-section of the
community, such as Martin Luther King, Eldridge Cleaver
and Muhammad Ali, reached a broad audience
(via LIFE magazine).

43. Parks, Shaft, 1971

44. Parks, Shaft, 1971 (introduced into the Library of Congress in 2000) , Shaft 2000

45. As WW2 approached, there was a trend of optimism -
people wanted to put troubling news aside. This attitude
would take hold in the late 1930s - early 1940s. The images
done by the FSA were opposite of this optimistic view.
“Teach the underprivileged to have fewer children and less
misery,” “Touched me to the point were I would like to quit
everything in order to help these stricken people,” “A false
impression is given of American farm conditions. Typical of
the New Deal bunk at taxpayer’s expense.” “Every
comfortable person who objects to the present Administration’s
efforts to help the poor should be made to look at these splendid
pictures until they see daylight.” -- written responses to a New
York exhibition of FSA photographs in 1938.

46. George Hurrell, Jean Harlow, 1935

47. Anatol Josepho, Photo Booth, 1930s

48. Capra, It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946 - WW2 ended in 1945

49. Margaret Bourke-White, first cover of LIFE magazine, 1936
“To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events, to watch the face of the poor and the
gestures of the proud; to see strange things; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be
amazed; to see and be instructed.”

50. Margaret Bourke-White, first cover of LIFE magazine, 1936
“To see life; the see the world; to eyewitness great events; to
watch the face of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to
see strange things; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to
see and be amazed; to see and be instructed.”
- LIFE magazine, November 1936

51. Margaret Bourke-White,from Life photo essay, 1936

52. Margaret Bourke-White, Life photo essay, 1936

53. Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971)

54. Bourke-White, Concentration Camp Survivors, 1945

55. Bourke-White, After the Louisville Flood, 1930s

56. August Sander, Master Upholsterer, Berlin, 1929
“Simple, natural portraits that show the subject in an
environment corresponding to their own individuality.”

57. Sander, Varnisher, 1930

58. Sander, Bricklayer, 1928

59. Sander, Pastry Cook, 1928

60. Sander, Boxers, Cologne 1929

61. • In 1929, the first of a proposed series of 20 volumes of
Sander’s photographs was published under the title “Face
of Our Time.”
• The Nazis banned the book in 1934, destroyed the printing
press, confiscated the books and negatives.
• They believed the photographs revealed a diversity of
physical characteristics that were contrary to Nazi
teachings about class and race.
Sander, Boxers, Cologne 1929

62. Berndt & Hilla Becher, Water Towers

63. Andreas Gursky, 99 Cents Market

64. Bill Brandt, Parlormaids Ready to Serve Dinner, Parlormaid Preparing a Bath Before Dinner, 1932-35

65. Brandt, Worker Family at Table, County Durham, 1932-35

66. Brandt, 1932-35
“The extreme social contrast, during those years before the war,
was visually, very inspiring for me.”

67. Brandt, Snicket in Halifax, 1937

68. Brandt, Policeman in a Dockland Alley, Bermondsey, 1938

69. James Van Der Zee, Couple in Raccoon Coats, 1932

70. Harold Edgerton, Drop of Milk, 1930

72. Portrait of Robert Capa (Andre Friedmann 1913-1954)

73. Capa, Death of a Loyalist soldier, 1936

75. Joe Rosenthal, Marines Raising Flag on Iwo Jima, 1945

76. Capa, Street Fighting 1936, Amist Rubble After Air Raid, 1937

77. Capa: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”

78. Capa, D-Day, Normandy, June 6, 1944

79. William Eugene Smith, U.S. Marines With Wounded, Dying Infant, 1944

80. Smith,cover of LIFE magazine,1945

81. World War II- a few facts
• Global war - lasted from 1939-1945 (some conflicts in Asia started
earlier).
• Involved the vast majority of the world’s nations.
• The most widespread war in history - involved more than 100 million
people from more than 30 countries.
• “Total war” - all economic, industrial and scientific capabilities were
utilized for the “war effort.”
• Massive deaths of civilians: including the Holocaust, massive use of
airpower to bomb enemy cities, and first use of nuclear weapons
(Hiroshima, Nagasaki).
• Reulted in 50-85 million fatalities.
• Deadliest conflict in human history
• W. Eugene Smith, Battle of Saipan Island, U,.S. Marines in combat with
Japanese.

82. Roman Vishniac, Boy With Earlocks, 1937

83. John Heartfield, Through Light to Night, 1933

84. Henri Cartier Bresson, Gestapo Informant, Dessau,Germany 1945

85. Edward Steichen, Herbert Bayer, Road to Victory exhibition, MoMA New York, 1942

86. Edward Steichen, Herbert Bayer, Road to Victory exhibition, MoMA New York, 1942

87. Lee Miller, Buchenwald, April 1945

88. Lee Miller, “I implore you to believe this is true.”

90. Chapter 9: Retake
• With the Great Depression came an age of documentary
practice in American film and photography.
• Central to photojournalism: images of the poor and efforts to
help them.
• The FSA’s straightfoward style became popular in newspapers
and magazines as did the photo essay (several images
dedicated to a single theme).
• Photography’s capability for entertainment (photo booths,
celebrity images) grew.
• During WWII, newspapers and picture magazines (LIFE) were
ready to report, protest and propagandize.
• The eye witness documentary style became strongly
associated with the Great Depression and the war years.