Picturing a Nation: The Great Depression’s Finest Photographers…

The work of Roy Stryker and the photographers employed by the Farm Security Administration is legendary. As a team, they created the most extensive photographic documentation of the United States ever developed. Presently housed in the Library of Congress, the archive consists of more than 175 thousand black and white photos and negatives. The team advanced the development of color photography. Still, their most important contribution was to introduce Americans to the suffering of those, who no fault of their own, were destitute. Their work influenced social policy in ways that are still felt today.

This book presents a small sampling from the archive, organized by region of the country (south, Midwest, west, and northeast). Some color photographs appear, but most are in black and white. The photos of all ten of the lead FSA photographers are included. The images are nicely formatted against a black background, and most appear on a single page. Photos spread across multiple pages introduce each of the four sections.

There is extensive coverage of the FSA program and photographs in numerous books (e.g., Dorothea Lange: 500 FSA Photographs, Marion Post Wolcott, Farm Security Administration Photography, and Walker Evans, Farm Security Administration Photographs: Book One), but this book provides a succinct introduction in an appealing format. ( )

Synergy: Farm Security Administration

The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was part of the Great Depression-era New Deal program. The FSA became famous for its photography program that depicted rural poverty. Between 1935 and 1944, about 175,000 black-and-white images were generated by the eleven photographers. Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks were among the photographers.

Read the recently published nonfiction history for youth then learn more at the website.

PICTURING A NATION by Martin W. Sandler shares the story of the FSA photographers who brought the challenges of rural living alive for America. Filled with stunning photographs and quotes from both the photographers and others, the book features many lesser-known images to help young people understand the impact of the Farm Security Administration’s photography program. After introducing the program, the book explores photographs from each region and concludes with an overview of each photographer.

The FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION digital collection at the Library of Congress shares thousands of historical photos along with articles and essays about the FSA-OWI photographic unit.
To visit the black and white collection, go to https://bit.ly/3FBBZHi
To visit the color collection, go to https://bit.ly/3Igrbjs

ABOUT THE FSW is a video from the Library of Congress that introduces the Farm Security Administration collection.
To watch the overview, go to https://youtu.be/00UaD8_UpkE

ARC courtesy of Candlewick Press. ( )

This is a good survey of the entire project that started with the Resettlement Administration (later the Farm Security Administration). Talented photographers were sent to every area of the nation to record conditions. The famous photos of Dorothea Lange appear, along with lesser know artis. A pleasure to browse through. However the full quality of the book is difficult to judge in this review copy as the final edition is promised in full color and the review copy is in black and white except for a few small reproductions on the front cover. Definitely a good choice for students of photography and for social history of the 1930s.

Since I teach American Literature, including literature of the Great Depression, I was surprised that I hadn't seen a lot of these pictures already. They were surprisingly unique, which was great! However, the copy provided through the Early Reviewer program was a pre-publication black and white version with really grainy images (in many cases) and the same type of paper used for a regular novel. Therefore, since this book is so reliant on the photography, I would only pursue it if it had nice glossy pages and/or color pictures. The book's content is great so, hopefully, the book itself is much improved in its final version. ( )

*reviewed from uncorrected ARC via Early Reviewers*

children's/teens/adult nonfiction (suggested for ages 10-14 but would suit a wider range), pictorial history, documentary photography - United States in the 1930s.

Little known history behind the iconic images that have been preserved by the Library of Congress thanks to Roy Stryker of the FSA and his team of skilled photographers (which included one Black man and two women). You can learn a lot about the Depression and the contrast of experiences that existed then from studying the hundreds of photos reproduced herein (along with the relatively brief accompanying text and captions), but also about photography and the practice of documenting lives rather than the posed, staged pictures we see so heavily today.

Because this was a pre-publication advanced review copy, I didn't get to see all the color photos in color, or in high resolution, but I could see that this was clearly an outstanding collection than any photographer would be glad to study. ( )