p>John Vachon, the photographer, started at the Farm Security Administration (FSA) as an "assistant messenger" who had just arrived from his native Minnesota to attend college. His task was to maintain the FSA photographic files. His interest in photography grew and Roy Emerson Stryker, the creator of the unit told him, "When you do the filing, why don't you look at the pictures."

By 1937 Vachon had looked enough to want to make photographs himself, and with advice from Ben Shahn he tried out a Leica in and around Washington. His weekend photographs of "everything in the Potomac River valley" were clearly the work of a beginner, but Stryker lent him equipment and encouraged him to keep at it. In addition to Shahn, Walker Evans and Arthur Rothstein guided him through the beginning steps. Vachon received little in the way of specifics as to what he was to photograph.

Starting in Omaha he fashioned an ongoing and complex story of the contrast of wealth and poverty by taking pictures of everyday people and events. From 1936 to 1943, John Vachon traveled across America as part of the FSA photography project and he documented the desperation he saw in the world of the Great Depression and the peoples resistance to the heavy hands of industry. His portraits of black and white Americans are among the very best images created by the FSA.

Medium : 1 slide : color

Created/Published : 1942 or 1943

Creator : John Vachon, photographer, 1914-1975

Part of the Farm Service Administration -- Office of War Information Collection housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress

Availability: Special order: ships in 3-4 weeks

Product #: 21604070