Extended Essay in History The Resettlement Administration/Farm Security Administration photography project during the Great Depression Research Question: To what extent was the Resettlement Administration/Farm Security Administration’s photography project during the Great Depression, from the year 1935 to 1942, propagandistic? Candidate Name: Gabriel Civita Ramirez Candidate Number: 0353­_ _ _ May 2016 Session Escola Graduada de São Paulo EE Subject: History EE Advisor: Charlie Potter/Ocki Fernandes Word Count: 3953 Civita Ramirez 1 Abstract During the Great Depression, the Resettlement Administration (RA) sent out a dozen photographers to document the United States on film. Nowadays, the photographs’ artistic qualities are indisputable, but what often seems to stir up debate is whether the program had propagandistic intentions. Some scholars, like James Curtis, argue that the RA/FSA photographs aren’t representative of the truth and were propaganda. Others argue that the photographs have accurately depicted reality during the Depression. My Extended Essay sets to answer “To what extent was the Resettlement Administration/Farm Security Administration’s photography project during the Great Depression, from the year 1935 to 1942, propagandistic?” To answer this question, I examined the political and visual context that influenced and led to the project’s creation. Additionally, I examined how the photographers were instructed on what to photograph, how they photographed, and how the images were later edited and distributed. I looked into these factors from the year 1935 to 1942. The political context suggests that the photography program was created to convince politicians, the press, and the public that the RA’s farming programs were effective. Additionally, the project’s interests were clearly aligned with the documentary photography movement’s main goal: to promote social change. Not only is there is evidence that the photographs were edited to bring about a political and social response, the very methods the photographers practiced, among other factors, led to significant bias. Not only so, but from 1936 onwards the photographers were ordered to emphasize growth in their images. Moreover, many of these images found themselves in social welfare journals and government publications. In Civita Ramirez 2 sum, since the project fails to prove it’s impartiality on the many levels investigated, it is evident that it was propagandistic, even if it wasn’t entirely deceitful. Word Count: 290 Civita Ramirez 3 Table of Contents 1.
Introduction......................................................................................................................... 4 2.
Method................................................................................................................................ 5 3.
Context 3.1.
Political context...................................................................................................... 6 3.2.
Visual context..........................................................................................................8 4.
Content...............................................................................................................................10 5.
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................14 6.
Appendix A........................................................................................................................19 7.
Appendix B........................................................................................................................20 8.
Appendix C........................................................................................................................20 9.
Appendix D........................................................................................................................21 10.
Works Cited.......................................................................................................................22 Civita Ramirez 4 1. Introduction: In the midst of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt began creating agencies as part of the New Deal in an effort to assist the poorest communities in the United States. Among the many organizations established was the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). In 1935, a branch of FERA with a similar goal was created: the Resettlement Administration (RA). It’s goal was to help those affected by the recent farm mechanization and the Dust Bowl. Rexford Guy Tugwell, one of the members of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust, a team of trusted advisors, was put in charge of the agency. That same year, Tugwell established the Informational Division in the RA and hired Roy Stryker, whom he had worked with at Columbia University, to compile a photographic record of the RA’s activities. In turn, Stryker hired more than half a dozen photographers and deployed them across the country. “We set out to record on film as much of America as we could,” Stryker explained (qtd. in Carlebach 19) ­ and he met his goal. In the project’s eight​
­year lifetime, more than 270,000 images were captured (qtd. in Finnegan 37), captioned, and sent to the RA/FSA headquarters in Washington for distribution. Around 20 years after the program’s closure, many images were rediscovered by art critics and scholars, leading to an increase in academic discourse (Finnegan 39). This new discussion, in turn, brought up a research question worthy of investigation that this Extended Essay attempts to answer: “To what extent was the Resettlement Administration/Farm Security Administration’s photography project during the Great Depression, from the year 1935 to 1942, propagandistic?” Some historians argue that the project was “painstaking, objective inquiry that disclosed the actuality of rural suffering during the Great Depression” given the “inherent Civita Ramirez 5 honesty and authenticity of all documentary photographs” (Curtis vii)​
. Alternatively, some scholars argue that the RA/FSA photographs aren’t representative of the truth and are, in fact, propaganda. 2. Method In order to determine whether the photography project was propagandistic, I followed a set method. “Propaganda” is defined as “the systematic dissemination of information, esp. in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view” (qtd. in Meyer 23)​
. With this definition in mind, propaganda can be visualized as a spectrum. On the far right lies propaganda that is blatantly deceitful and misleading. Quite often, this type of propaganda is the only type of information permitted in a society. On the other side of the spectrum exists subtle propaganda: information that delicately promotes a cause or a point of view. This type of propaganda is more frequent in functioning democracies. To determine whether the RA/FSA photography project was propagandistic, I examined the content the program produced from years 1935 to 1942. I looked into the following three factors, which aren’t mutually exclusive: ­ If and how the photographers were instructed on what to photograph. ­ How the photographers captured their images. ­ How the images were edited and distributed. If the content proves to be completely impartial in these three areas, it can’t be propaganda. Alternatively, if the content is found to be biased, misleading, or promoting a point of view in Civita Ramirez 6 any of these three categories, it qualifies as propaganda. Consequently, it can be located somewhere in the propaganda spectrum. It’s position in the spectrum would vary relative to the level of bias and deceit. Regardless of it’s location in the spectrum, the project itself would, consequently, qualify as propagandistic (since it knowingly distributed the content). This Extended Essay also examines the context behind the photography project. It is important to note that while context, in and of itself, can’t deem the project propagandistic, it can provide us with a very accurate sense of the agency’s original intentions. By looking at content together with it’s socio­historical context, it is easier to identify propaganda. 3. Context: 3.1 Political Context: It should come as no surprise that Roosevelt’s government was met with disapproval from the press and the public throughout the Great Depression. As of March 1933, for example, “at least one out of every four American workers were jobless and only about one­​
quarter of those were receiving any relief, most of it grossly inadequate” (qtd. in Stevens and Fogel 12). From the people’s perspective, the government was to blame for the misery that had descended upon them. The countless Alphabet Agencies, created by Roosevelt as part of the New Deal, attempted to suppress the crisis. Some were successful in their respective areas, but that didn’t mean they were immune to criticism. The Resettlement Administration (RA), for instance, was constantly attacked by the media due to it’s controversial projects. These projects reflected the views of the RA’s first director: Rexford Guy Tugwell. Civita Ramirez 7 Tugwell wasn’t a small political figure in the 1930s. During part of the Great Depression, he served as under­secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture. More importantly, he was a member of the President's Brain Trust, a team of close, trusted advisors whose opinions had Roosevelt’s ear​
. Tugwell, however, was a radical individual, whose collectivist, political convictions were deeply troubling for many Americans. His views were labeled idealistic and worse: communistic. In Washington, for example, Rexford Tugwell was often referred to as “Rex the Red” (Jess and Howe 216). He was a “lightning rod for attacks against the New Deal”, according to scholar Michael Carlebach (13). Tugwell was a strong advocate of planned government intervention. He believed the industrial planning in World War I was successful and advocated agricultural planning led by the industry to end rural poverty. When he was put in charge of the Resettlement Administration, agricultural planning suddenly became a plan he could put into action (Namorato 35­54). Soon emerged communal farms, migrant labor camps, and suburban resettlement projects, infamously known as “Tugwell Towns”, in the RA. The idea of Tugwell Towns, he said, was “to go just outside centers of population, pick up cheap land, build a whole community and entice people into it. Then go back into the cities and tear down whole slums and make parks of them” (Jacobs 310). Of course, programs like these were met with hostility by the American public, and many were critical of his appointment as director in the RA. Referring to his role as director, Pulitzer Prize winner Alva Johnston said it was “like putting Typhoid Mary in charge of the Public Health Service” (qtd. in Carlebach 13). Criticism, however, did nothing to sway Tugwell away from his strong­held political convictions. Unfortunately for him, this criticism put the RA’s mission in jeopardy. The RA’s Civita Ramirez 8 existence was entirely dependent of Congress’ funding and approval. In such a heated political climate, it was only a matter of time before congressional members grew skeptical of the effectiveness of the RA’s programs. “The anti­New Deal coalition in Congress consistently argued against federal funding for those of the FSA (formerly known as the RA) and WPA, claiming that they wasted taxpayers’ money and encouraged communism and radicalism”, explains Finnegan (62). When the agency’s future seemed bleak, Tugwell established the Informational Division in the RA and hired Roy Stryker to kick­start the photography project. According to McCamy, “publicity activity increases with the amount of hostility to the agency” (qtd. in Carlebach 23). With this observation in mind, Michael Carlebach suggests that the photography program was created to fight back the endless sway of criticism directed towards the RA. More broadly, the photography project’s intent was to convince the wary public, press, and Congress that the RA’s programs were effective. Stryker recalls to interviewer Richard K. Doud years later: “What so often happens in a bureaucracy, you can’t survive .... We supplied them with material they used. And we were depended on” (qtd. in Finnegan 62­63). 3.2. Visual Context: Arthur Rothstein, one of the many photographers who participated in the photography project, said: “There was a feeling that you were in on something new and exciting, a missionary sense of dedication to this project …. We had a great social responsibility. We were dedicated to the idea that our lives can be improved, that man is the master of his environment, and it’s possible for us to live a better life” (qtd. in Carlebach 17). Rothstein’s comment seems to epitomize the main objective of documentary photography from the early 20th century: to Civita Ramirez 9 promote social change via objectivity. As a matter of fact, Rothstein recognized that “the most effective documentary photographs are those that convince their observers with such compelling, persuading truth that they are moved to action” (qtd. in Carlebach 20). In the 19th century, the photographic domain was dominated by one aesthetic movement: Pictorialism. Rather than valuing objectivity, American photographers were primarily concerned with “imitation and illusion”, according to art historian Miles Orvell (qtd. in Finnegan 43)​
. The vast majority of artists viewed the camera as a tool for emulating paintings rather than for objectively depicting reality. However, the rapid technological developments of film and photographic material in the early 20th century allowed for a shift in photographic modes ­ from pictorialism to documentary. Although the interest in photography as a ‘naturalistic medium’ was not particularly new (Lewis Hine’s progressive social photography in the 1890s had paved the way for future photographers), documentary photography only took on cultural significance in the mid​
­thirties. The media came to be utilized by people who were “inspired by the machine’s capacities to record and analyze reality” (qtd. in Finnegan 43­44). The change in the medium’s direction towards objectivity was also a product of photographers questioning the purposes of their art in light of what was happening around them. Dorothea Lange, at the time a well regarded commercial photographer, credits her experience of photographing a group of unemployed men waiting in a breadline to her shift from ‘fiction to nonfiction’. Artistic decisions like these were political ones as well. Undoubtedly, the move to documentary photography was aided by a growing class­consciousness during the Great Depression. Lange, for example, came to view her commercial work as ‘inappropriate’ during Civita Ramirez 10 the time of crisis. Eventually, many photographers, including those from the RA/FSA, came to the belief that the camera was most importantly a public communications tool. “Our job was to educate the city dweller to the needs of the rural population … Be a press agent of the underprivileged”, explained Stryker (qtd. in Carlebach 17­19). Perhaps more importantly, there now existed a market for documentary photography, explains author William Stott. Stott argues that the transition to documentary was also aided by the people’s thirst for documentary material during the Great Depression: “By the time the Depression entered its third (and worst) winter, most Americans had grown skeptical of the of abstract promises. More than ever they became worshippers in the cult of experience and believed just what they saw, touched, handled, and the crucial word, felt.”​
(qtd. in Finnegan 44) 4. Content: Susan Sontag writes: “Even when photographers are most interested with mirroring reality, they are still haunted by tacit imperatives of taste and conscience.” (6) Stryker warned his team repeatedly not to manipulate their subjects in order to get more dramatic images. Regardless of this fact, many of the photographs taken by the talented crew are plagued with bias. Naturally, there are many factors that could influence the way the photographers captured images. For one, the photographers favored one photographic technique over another and came from different cultural backgrounds. Arthur Rothstein studied photography in Columbia University, Russel Lee gained interest in photography when studying chemical engineering, while Marion Post Wolcott learned photography by herself (Stevens and Fogel 13). From their Civita Ramirez 11 images, we can conclude that the photographers with less background in photographic theory were less likely to pay attention to composition when capturing an image, as an example. Additionally, many photographers had opposing political views, which, again, influenced the image they captured on film. Walker Evans, for instance, steered clear of the politics involving his documentation. He writes: “The value, and if you like, even the propaganda value for the government lies in the record itself, which, in the long run, will prove an unintelligent and farsighted thing to have done. NO POLITICS WHATEVER.” On the opposite end lies Ben Shahn, who, unlike his mentor, had politics written all over his work, to such an extent that Mora and Hill wrote that he was “espousing a political radicalism that often verged on Marxism”. (qtd. in Stevens and Fogel 12­13) Moreover, as established in the previous section (3.2 Visual Context), the photographers didn’t photograph the Great Depression for the sole purpose of ‘record­keeping’. The documentary movement had the goal of convincing an audience. In addition to photographing to promote social change, the photographers explored their artistic inclinations throughout the project. Most of the crew emulated the work of their idol, Walker Evans. Photographer John Falcon even visited and photographed Evans’ favorite picture­taking locations (Curtis 10). Ultimately, many personal factors impacted the photographers’ works. In fact, the photographers were biased throughout the photographic process even at the most basic level. All of the members, without exception, took series of images of their subjects. These series of photographs were then reviewed by Stryker himself, from which he would select his preference. According to Rothstein, Stryker often went through the images and “didn’t put [those he didn’t like] in the files”. In some occasions, Rothstein adds, Skryker wasn’t hesitant in Civita Ramirez 12 “killing” negatives with a hole punch (qtd. from Curtis 10). Migrant Mother, the FSA’s most iconic image, was a product of such method (although none of the negatives met their demise with a hole punch; they were stored properly in the RA’s vault). Migrant Mother was the sixth and last of a series of pictures. “In the first five,” writes James Curtis, “Dorothea Lange placed her subjects in various poses, both to elicit their cooperation and to set the stage for her final composition (see Appendix A).” (vii) Of course, this practice was little fault of their own. There is no way the crew would refrain from taking a series of photographs of their subjects to avoid having bias. Bias was inevitable. Even Roy Stryker recognizes this fact: “The moment that the photographer selects a subject, he is working on the basis of a bias” (qtd. in Carlebach 12). Regardless, and to quote from Sontag: “In deciding how a picture should look, in preferring one exposure to another, photographers are always imposing standards on their subject. Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are.” (6) More shocking is the degree to which the RA/FSA photographers knowingly manipulated entire photographic series to conform to the cultural values of that era. As James Curtis explains: “Walker Evans went to great lengths to superimpose his love of neatness and symmetry on the lives of Alabama sharecroppers, Dorothea Lange reduced the size of Migrant Mother’s family to suit prevailing norms. Arthur Rothstein borrowed heavily from … motion pictures to dramatize the plight of the Dust Bowl farmers. Russell Lee recreated the nineteenth­century small town ideal to Civita Ramirez 13 allay public anxiety about the growth of a mass, impersonal society at home and abroad.” (ix) On one memorable occasion, photographer Arthur Rothstein got in trouble for blatantly moving a skull in his famous steer skull series of photographs (see Appendix B). He was made a “political scapegoat” during a “Republican tirade” in 1936, according to Curtis (17). On another occasion, Dorothea Lange cropped her famous image of the white plantation owner and his black field workers in post­production to “heighten the racial implications of the image” (Curtis 15). These events were seen with indifference by Roy Stryker, suggesting that even though he had warned his crew to be as objective as possible, manipulation of a photograph to call attention to a known social problem was justifiable. This leads us to ask ourselves if the RA/FSA images are truly representative of the reality of the Great Depression. It might be tempting to presume that most of these practices were unconscious decisions made by the photographers, and thus the images are not intentionally biased, thereby rendering the content as ‘less deceitful’. Even if that were true, the change in political climate in 1936 led to Stryker making very conscious decisions concerning what and how to photograph. Shortly after Roosevelt's reelection, the Resettlement Administration, previously an independent agency, became part of the massive Department of Agriculture and received a new name: the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Rexford Guy Tugwell resigned from his role as director, part due to the transition, and part due to the more conservative climate in Washington. To make matters worse, the FSA was severely underfunded since that summer. Roy Stryker, now in charge, became “increasingly more concerned with depicting the health and vitality of farm life” (Carlebach 20­21). As a result, Stryker “told his staff exactly what to find, and then sent them out Civita Ramirez 14 into the field to take pictures” (qtd. in Stevens and Fogel 16). Essentially, he began to instruct the staff to emphasize growth in their images, and they complied. Photographer Marion Post Wolcott, for instance, recalls that she was instructed by Stryker to “get more photographs of the positive side of the FSA program and something different for the exhibits that could be used to contrast with the other programs” (qtd. in Carlebach 21) ­ and she did (see Appendix C). Bertolt Brecht writes: “Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change.” ("Quotes About Documentary Film and Filmmaking") Unfortunately, this is only half­true for the FSA. While conditions were changing for the better by 1936, the emphasis in growth, vigor, and vitality in the FSA images are disproportionate to the actual improvement in farming conditions. Photographer Russell Lee, for example, avoided photographing the harsh farming conditions of the mid 30s and turned instead to documenting small, rural towns on film. According to James Curtis, the “small­town project would ... allow the file to accumulate positive images of rural life that would balance the necessary but controversial portraits of agrarian distress” (18). Throughout this particular project, Lee “studiously avoided compositions that might convey worker dissatisfaction, loneliness, or despair” (20). “Emphasize the idea of abundance ­ the ‘horn of plenty’ and pour maple syrup over it”, said Stryker when instructing Delano in 1940, “I know your dammed photographer’s soul writhes, but to hell with it. Do you think I give a damn about a photographer’s soul with Hitler at our doorstep” (qtd. in Carlebach 23)? Delano, of course, complied (see Appendix D). 5. Conclusion Civita Ramirez 15 Filmmaker John Grierson, who coined the term ‘documentary’, writes: “I look on cinema as a pulpit, and use it as a propagandist.” (“Quotes About Documentary Film and Filmmaking”) By examining the evidence in Sections 3.1 and 3.2, it is evident that the political and visual context influenced the project’s creation and goals, respectively. The program had the intent of documenting America and of convincing Americans that the RA/FSA programs were effective in order to survive through criticism and gain proper funding. Additionally, the main goal of the documentary tradition from the 1930s was clearly aligned with the RA/FSA’s political intentions, which means that the desire to promote change was twofold. Hence, the context the content finds itself in is indicative of propagandistic intentions. For the content to not qualify as propaganda, it had to prove itself completely impartial in these three categories: ­ If and how the photographers were instructed on what to photograph. ­ How the photographers captured their images. ­ How the images were edited and distributed. If the content, however, is found to be biased, misleading, or promoting a point of view in any of these categories, it qualifies as propaganda and can be placed somewhere in the propaganda spectrum. Upon a first glance, Roy Stryker seemed to simply oversee the project. However, throughout the program’s lifetime, he had most editing rights. More importantly, he exercised those rights throughout the entirety of the program. He determined which photographs were to be stored in the files, which, in turn, determined the images that were sent out to publications. Hence, regarding how the photographs were edited and distributed, the content is found to be Civita Ramirez 16 slightly biased. Moreover, as the political and economic state of affairs took a turn for the worse in 1936, Stryker instructed his team on what to photograph, ordering them to emphasize the idea of growth, to which the photographers complied. Thus, concerning if and how the photographers were instructed on what to photograph, and whether they followed these instructions, the content is found to be misleading (especially after 1936). Lastly, the photographers explored their artistic inclinations, took series of images as a matter of course, came from different cultural backgrounds, had opposing political views, etc. ­ all of which influenced the images in the rolls of film. Knowing this (and recognizing that these factors were mostly beyond their control), when it comes to how the photographers captured images, the content is found to be slightly biased. However, taking into account that the RA/FSA photographers manipulated entire photographic series to conform to cultural values, and that, in more than one occasion, blatantly manipulated objects or subjects in order to convey a message, the content also qualifies as deceitful. Taking all of this into account, it is obvious that the RA/FSA photographs aren’t only subtle propaganda. Yet, it is also evident that they aren’t ‘pure propaganda’, either (compare this program with the content produced by the Soviet Union, for example). Instead, the RA/FSA photographs belong in the middle of the spectrum: mild propaganda. This, in turn, answers the Research Question: “To what extent was the Resettlement Administration/Farm Security Administration’s photography project during the Great Depression, from the year 1935 to 1942, propagandistic?” Since the content qualifies as propaganda, and can be placed in the propaganda spectrum, the project itself is propagandistic. Civita Ramirez 17 Evaluation of sources and final remarks: There were three sources that were cited in this Extended Essay quite frequently: ● A paper published in ​
The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts​
by Dr. Michael L Carlebach, a University of Miami professor who specializes in the history of American photography. ● A book, published by Temple University Press, by James Curtis, a Professor of History and Director of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture at the University of Delaware. ● A paper by Cara A. Finnegan, a University of Illinois professor who specializes in visual rhetoric and photography, published in the ​
Rhetoric Society Quarterly journal. Carlebach’s paper was perhaps the most valuable, considering it was the source that made most use out of primary sources. Carlebach frequently cited letters and interviews from important people in the RA/FSA, such as Tugwell, Stryker, and half a dozen of photographers from the project, which aided me tremendously. Additionally, the paper exhibited a nice balance between the visual and political context behind the project. One limitation, however, is that the paper is fairly short; it is only 20 pages in length. I wish he had published a larger paper (or a book) on the issue. It would have provided me with more information. James Curtis book was valuable in the visual category. Curtis went into tremendous detail explaining how the photographers captured their images for the RA/FSA project. This information proved to be very important for a part of my essay. That being said, one of the Civita Ramirez 18 source’s limitation is that it does not explore the political history of the Great Depression. Ultimately, I did not want to rely on too many visual arguments for propaganda considering this Extended Essay is not an art paper. Fortunately, Finnegan’s paper provided me with the information I believed Curtis’ book lacked. Since her research area is in political rhetoric, Finnegan’s paper discussed the fervent political scene of the Great Depression in great detail, which was valuable information for this Extended Essay. The paper’s limitation, however, is that it focuses on the use of the RA/FSA photographs in ​
U.S Camera​
, a popular photography magazine at the time. As a result, a significant portion of Finnegan’s paper was irrelevant for my Essay. As a sidenote, Finnegan cites a book by historian William Scott titled “ Documentary Expression and Thirties America”. I believed this book would have provided me with useful information for this Essay, and so I tracked it and ordered it. Unfortunately, it never arrived at my home address. Civita Ramirez 19 Appendix A Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figs. 1 to 4 are a series of images Dorothea Lange captured of “Migrant Mother” in California. Civita Ramirez 20 Appendix B Figure 1 Image of the skull Arthur Rothstein captured in South Dakota. (Rothstein) Appendix C Figure 1 Image of a “Negro Juke Joint” Marion P. Wolcott captured in Mississippi. (Wolcott) Civita Ramirez 21 Appendix D Figure 1 Image of Polish tobacco farmers Jack Delano captured in Connecticut. (Delano) Civita Ramirez 22 Works Cited Carlebach, Michael L. “Documentary and Propaganda: The Photographs of the Farm Security Administration.” ​
The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts ​
8.No.​
​
(1988): 6­25. JSTOR​
. Print. Dec. 2014. Curtis, James. ​
Mind's Eye, Mind's Truth: FSA Photography Reconsidered​
. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1989. Print. Delano, Jack. ​
Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Lyman, Polish Tobacco Farmers near Windsor Locks, Connecticut​
. 1940. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. ​
Library of Congress​
. Web. April 2015. Finnegan, Cara A. "Documentary as Art in "U.S. Camera"" ​
Rhetoric Society Quarterly​
2nd ser. 31.Spring (2001): 37­68. ​
JSTOR​
. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Print. 3 Nov. 2014. Gilbert, Jess, and Carolyn Howe. "Beyond "State vs. Society": Theories of the State and New Deal Agricultural Policies." ​
American Sociological Review​
56.2 (1991): 216. ​
JSTOR​
. Print. Apr.2015 Jacobs, Jane. "16." ​
The Death and Life of Great American Cities​
. 310. Print. Apr. 2015 Lange, Dorothea. ​
Migrant Agricultural Worker's Family. Seven Hungry Children. Mother Aged Thirty­two. Father Is a Native Californian. Destitute in Pea Picker's Camp, Nipomo, California, Because of the Failure of the Early Pea Crop. These People Had Just Sold Their Tent in Order to Buy Food. Of the Twenty­five Hundred People in This Camp Most of Them Were Destitute​
. 1936. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Library of Congress​
. Web. April 2015. Civita Ramirez 23 Lange, Dorothea. ​
Migrant agricultural worker's family. Seven children without food. Mother aged thirty­two. Father is a native Californian. Nipomo, California.​
1936. Library of Congress’ Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black­and­White Negatives Collection. ​
Library of Congress​
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Migrant agricultural worker's family. Seven children without food. Mother aged thirty­two. Father is a native Californian. Nipomo, California (No.2).​
1936. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. ​
Library of Congress​
. Web. April 2015. Lange, Dorothea. ​
Migrant agricultural worker's family. Seven children without food. Mother aged thirty­two. Father is a native Californian. Nipomo, California (No.3).​
1936. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. ​
Library of Congress​
. Web. April 2015. Meyer, Chris. "The FSA Photographs: Information, or Propaganda?" ​
BU Arts and Sciences Writing Program​
1. ​
BU Arts and Sciences Writing Program​
. Web. Nov. 2014. Namorato, Michael V. ​
Rexford G. Tugwell: A Biography​
. New York: Praeger, 1988. 35­54. Print. Apr.2015 "Quotes About Documentary Film and Filmmaking" ​
Reel Life Stories: Documentary Film and Video Collections​
. UC Berkeley Library's Media Resources Center, n.d. Web. Apr. 2015. Rothstein, Arthur. ​
The Bleached Skull of a Steer on the Dry Sun­baked Earth of the South Dakota Badlands​
. 1936. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. ​
Library of Congress​
. Web. Apr. 2015. Sontag, Susan. "In Plato's Cave." ​
On Photography​
. New York: Picador USA, 2001. Print. Apr.2015 Civita Ramirez 24 Stevens, R. L. and J. A. Fogel. "Images of the Great Depression: A Photographic Essay." ​
OAH Magazine of History​
16.1, The Great Depression (2001): 11­16. ​
JSTOR​
. Print. Dec. 2014. Wolcott, Marion P. ​
Jitterbugging in Negro Juke Joint, Saturday Evening, outside Clarksdale, Mississippi​
. 1939. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. ​
Library of Congress​
. Web. April 2015.