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A black and white photo of a group of people in bathing suits. Office of War Information Photograph
Summary
This image is one of the images made by photographers working in Stryker's unit as it existed in a succession of government agencies: the Farm Security Administration (1937-1942).
The photographs of the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944. This U.S. government photography project was headed for most of its existence by Roy E. Stryker, formerly an economics instructor at Columbia University, and employed such photographers as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, John Vachon, and Carl Mydans.
The unit's main office was in Washington, D.C. The office distributed photographic equipment and film, drew up budgets, allocated travel funds, hired staff, developed, printed, and numbered most negatives, reviewed developed film, edited photographers' captions written in the field, and maintained files of negatives, prints, and captions.
Staff photographers were given specific subjects and/or geographic areas to cover. These field assignments often lasted several months. Rejected images were classified as "killed." In earlier phases of the project a hole was sometimes punched through the "killed" negatives; later, this practice was abandoned. The rejected images are usually near duplicates and alternate views of a printed negative.
Franklin Roosevelt faced a problem when the Great Depression put millions of able-bodied men out of work. His response included national service programs like the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps. He believed that this civilian “tree army” would relieve the rural unemployed and keep youth “off the city street corners.” Formed in March 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC, was one of the first New Deal programs. CCC camps were established in communities across America. The Corps helped to build and improve roads, construct three lakes, create infrastructure at newly charted state parks, Each camp afforded purposeful work for hundreds of men and had a lasting impact in the area it was built. Camp commanders had army-like powers and workers were required to address superiors as “sir.” By September 1935 over 500,000 young men had lived in CCC camps. The men planted millions of trees on land made barren from fires, dug canals and ditches, built wildlife shelters, stocked rivers and lakes with nearly a billion fish, restored historic battlefields, and cleared beaches and campgrounds. In all, nearly 3 million young men participated in the CCC provided unexpected preparation for the massive call-up in World War II.
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