Farm Security Administration Photographs Re-Emerge

Be still my beating heart. I love Depression-era photography. And, lo and behold, now there are a zillion photos to look at from that era, here.

From a piece in the New York Times...

The images in New York are not all classic Farm Security Administration images. Some are alternate images before and after some of the more dramatic photos. Others are plain documents of everyday American life that also reveal the photographers’ process. The men and women who held what must have been the greatest photo jobs ever also shot some fairly mundane things.

But often, images that are not “decisive moments” are equally revealing.

Though he was a giant in American photography, Mr. Stryker was just one man with one set of eyes. People look at photographs differently now, and what is considered good composition has changed over time.

In the New York collection, a visitor can see the original prints.

“There are very few people who have actually held a vintage F.S.A. print from the time they were taken,” Mr. Pinson said. “Here, people can see them, read the back of the prints and research them.”
With the cataloging and digitizing of these distinctive images the New York Public Library’s collection of Mr. Stryker’s project is re-emerging as the important archive that he intended.