FSA

The Farm Security Administration (FSA)

Housed at the Library of Congress, the archives of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) constitute an essential visual record of American life from the late 1920s through the onset of the Second World War. Guided by the adroit hands and watchful eyes of the master photo editor Roy Stryker, the FSA archive includes the work of dozens of photographers, from acknowledged giants like Walker EVANS, Ben SHAHN, and Dorothea LANGE to Marion Post WOLCOTT and Russell LEE, whose names and work may be less familiar. Stryker sent his artists across the country to shoot for a few weeks, mostly in small towns and rural areas and they worked from what he called 'shooting scripts' laundry lists of possible subjects and situations but were always free to explore their own perspectives on a locale, its inhabitants, and their activities.

The FSA photographers

Charlotte Brooks, Esther Bubley, Marjory Collins, Harold Corsini, Jack Delano, Arnold Eagle, Walker Evans, Theodor Jung, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Sol Libsohn, Carl Mydans, Martha McMillan Roberts, Gordon Parks, Marion Post Wolcott, Edwin Rosskam, Louise Rosskam, Arthur Rothstein, Richard Saunders, Ben Shahn, John Vachon, Todd Webb

Photo books by and on the work of FSA photographers

• Walker EVANS,
  Dorothea LANGE
  Russell LEE
  Gordon PARKS
  Marion POST WOLCOTT
  Arthur ROTHSTEIN
  Ben SHAHN
  Todd WEBB