FSA Photography as Street and Social Landscape Photography

Abstract

Because the Farm Security Administration (FSA) distributed the photographs to publications during the American Depression, this was likely the only widespread distribution of street and social landscape photography in the United States. This article aims to explore the two genres within FSA documentary photography. The relevance of this research is that the photographs are primary sources of American history—including journalism’s own—and their meaningfulness needs to be further investigated to understand how they communicated the conditions of America for public consumption. Although specific photographers had their work analyzed countless times as broadly documentary or specifically portraiture, there is a significant gap in the study of FSA photography as street and social landscape photography.