CLA_FSA

Step Two: The Farm Security Administration – Documenting the Great Depression

Part One: View the Video Excerpt

View the video clips on the FSA and Gordon Parks. You might wish to read the transcript as well. Make notes on what you learn and list any additional questions that you might have about the “propaganda agency” of the Farm Security Administration.

Answer the questions in the worksheet for Part One.

Part Two: The Photographer and His/Her Work:

Review the information and photographs on FSA – Documenting America.
Select one photographer whose work you like best.
Read the information on the photographer and select one photograph that you like best.
Analyze the selected photograph using the Photo Analysis Worksheet.
Complete the information listed in Step Two of the worksheet.

Sources:

FSA – Documenting America http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fadocamer.html): This website includes short biographies of the photographers as well as some of their best known photographs.

The American Memory – America from the Great Depression to World War II

Part Three: Final Comments

Hartley E. Howe notes that the objectives of the FSA photographers were to (1) tell people, through pictures, about the great human problem with which the Farm Security Administration is struggling: the problem of giving a decent break to the lowest third of our population and (2) to make a photographic record of rural America---a visual account of how America’s farmers live, work, play, eat, and sleep.

At the end of his article, Howe states that the FSA collection of rural America has “brought home to millions the tragedy of our rural lower third.” In so doing, this agency “has made a permanent impress on federal photographic methods. And it has vividly demonstrated the value of the camera as an instrument of government.”

Does the photograph you selected meet these objectives and accomplishments? If so how, if not, why not? Select ONE of the categories. Provide specific details about why your selected photograph either meets or does not meet the stated criteria.

Note: These questions are in the worksheet. Write your response in the worksheet to one of the questions.

Objective: This photograph demonstrates the struggle of the lowest third of the country’s farm population

Objective: This photograph provides a visual account of how America’s farmers live, work, play, eat, and sleep.

Accomplishment: This photograph demonstrates the value of the camera in telling the story about a segment of the American population.

Transcript for Video Excerpt
Activity One - FSA

Title: THE FSA

PICTURING HARD TIMES

NARRATOR: The Great Depression. In Washington, Roosevelt attempted to deal with the economic crisis proposing a multitude of new government programs. He knew he would need the support of Congress and the general public.

As part of the Farm Security Administration, the government established an organization unique in peace time, a propaganda agency that would use the power of photographs to sell Roosevelt’s programs. Roy Stryker, an economist from Columbia University was chosen to run this new agency.

JOHN MORRIS, Author/Picture Editor: Roy Stryker never took a picture in his life. But he was a great talent scout and he brought together a team of photographers, some of whom had become legends in the history of photography, like Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Russell Lee, and Walker Evans. Stryker was dedicated to telling the story of America the way it was as he put it, "our job was to introduce America to Americans."

[MONTAGE OF PHOTOGRAPHS]

JACK DELANO: I think the photographs that I did for Farm Security and what we all did I think is an expression of our feeling that we were living in a great country but that the country was in great trouble, and also that the people who were most troubled in those times were also the people who were part of its greatness.

EDWIN ROSSKAM: It was a politically naive period, and all of us who went to Washington at that time, had some crazy idea that what we could do could alter the course of history.

DR. NAOMI ROSENBLUM, Author: I’ve read any number of times about how there was dust in the food and dust on the table and dust in the bed and in the clothes, but until you actually see a good photograph such as Arthur Rothstein’s of the people walking from the house to the dust cellar, you don’t get a sense of the immensity of the occurrence. Somehow the photograph sums this all up in a different way; you get a sense of it that’s sort of visceral instead of just intellectual.

NARRATOR: Over six years, FSA photographers took a quarter of a million photographs. They were made available free of charge and were widely used in newspapers, magazines, exhibits and books. At the time, the pictures helped sell Roosevelt’s programs, but for later generations they have become a national treasure. Frozen in this archive is a critical moment of American history. Today, when we think of the Depression, we see these faces, the suffering and the sadness as well as their implicit message -- as bad as things were, America would endure...

Title: GORDON PARKS ON ELLA WATSON

NARRATION: In the early 1940s a young photographer, Gordon Parks, got a call to come to Washington, with the success of the FSA, its role was being expanded. Roy Stryker believed that photographs could be used to combat racial discrimination. He began by showing Parks how things really worked on the streets of the nation's capital.

GORDON PARKS, Photographer/Writer: So Roy Stryker asked me a few questions and said, what are you really know about the city? And I told him, and he said, hmmm, he said well I’m going to give you an assignment. Your first assignment. Put your camera on a shelf. I want you to go to Julius Garfinkle’s store, buy yourself a top coat. There’s a restaurant directly across the street. And then there’s a motion picture house down in the same block. So to make the story short, each one of them gave me short shrift. I didn’t get a coat at the department store. When I went to the restaurant, the man said, don’t you know Negroes have to eat on the other side in the back? You can’t come in this side. You have to get your food in to the back. And, of course, I didn’t even get in the movie house. That’s the way it was. So I was astounded. And I went back and Roy saw me walk in and he smiled. And he said, well how did it go? And I says, well I think you know how it went. He said, yeah. What are you going to do about it? I said, I don’t know. What do I do about it? He said, well, what’d you bring your camera down here for? Just like that. I said, oh. So, he left and the only person left in the building was a black woman, a char woman, who was sweeping the floor and mopping. So I introduced myself, she told me her name was Ella Watson, and I asked her if I could photograph her. Photograph me like this? I said yes. I really thought of Grant Wood’s picture American Gothic. I put a broom in one hand, and a mop in the other. And told her to look directly into the camera. Well, that picture has become the best known picture of all of my work. I showed it to Stryker three mornings later. He said, well, you’re getting the idea, but you’re going to get us all fired. Said this is a government agency and that picture is an indictment against America and I realize from the reactions of people that the camera could be a very powerful instrument against discrimination. Against poverty. Against racism...