Documentary Photography in the 1930s

Documentary Photography

Roosevelt’s New Deal was an attempt to alleviate the negative effects of the Depression. In this new deal he created a set of programs, for example, the Farm Security Administration. To dramatize the misfortunes and suffering from the Depression roosevelt sent out artists and writers to document the lives of Americans. The FSA sent out photographers to document the conditions in rural America with the goal of producing objective works to educate the public. These images are considered to be a core part of our history, revealing ordinary americans in a troubling time. Historian Alan Trachtenberg noted that this project “was perhaps the greatest collective effort … in the history of photography to mobilize resources to create a cumulative picture of a place and time”. Eighty thousand pictures were taken by the FSA and then distributed to agencies of newspaper and magazines to build support of the New Deal.

These photographs had a profound and lasting impact on its viewers. However, historians have noticed more how they manipulate the view instead of document reality. One example is Arthur Rothstein's famous image from 1936 titled Fleeing a Dust Storm. This image shows a family running from a dust storm, which many families had to do throughout the thirties. The FSA presented this image to the public as a “spontaneous” moment in the midst of a storm. In fact, Rothstein posed the picture by instructing the family where and how to stand. There was no storm to flee at this particular moment, but Rothstein did want to show the real devastation this region faced. These photographs remain the basis for American’s visual understanding of the Great Depression and it set a standard for documentary photography.

Historian James Curtis pointed out the fact that Rothstein had carried around a skull with him while he traveled through the plains. He placed the skull in his photographs for maximum effect. Many opponents of the new deal criticized Rothstein’s tactics which endangered the FSA’s project.

It is imperative that historians and the public consider photographs like they would written works, we need to be more aware of how the images we see can manipulate us. Photographs, like written works, document facts but they also express personal ideas and opinions.