Editing Farm Security Administration (section)

==Relief work==

One of the activities performed by the RA and FSA was the buying out of small farms that were not economically viable, and the setting up of 34 subsistence homestead communities, in which groups of farmers lived together under the guidance of government experts and worked a common area. They were not allowed to purchase their farms for fear that they would fall back into inefficient practices not guided by RA and FSA experts.<ref>Baldwin 1968</ref>

[[Dust Bowl|The Dust Bowl]] in the [[Great Plains]] displaced thousands of [[tenant farmer]]s, [[Sharecropping|sharecroppers]], and [[laborer]]s, many of whom (known as "[[Okies]]" or "Arkies") moved on to [[California]].  The FSA operated camps for them, such as [[Weedpatch Camp]] as depicted in ''[[The Grapes of Wrath]]''.

The RA and the FSA gave educational aid to 455,000 farm families during the period 1936–1943. In June 1936, [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Roosevelt]] wrote: "You are right about the farmers who suffer through their own fault... I wish you would have a talk with Tugwell about what he is doing to educate this type of farmer to become self-sustaining. During the past year, his organization has made 104,000 farm families practically self-sustaining by supervision and education along practical lines. That is a pretty good record!"<ref>Sternsher 272</ref>

The FSA's primary mission was not to aid farm production or prices.  Roosevelt's agricultural policy had, in fact, been to try to decrease agricultural production to increase prices.  When production was discouraged, though, the tenant farmers and small holders suffered most by not being able to ship enough to market to pay rents.  Many renters wanted money to buy farms, but the [[Agriculture Department]] realized there already were too many farmers, and did not have a program for farm purchases.  Instead, they used education to help the poor stretch their money further. Congress, however, demanded that the FSA help tenant farmers purchase farms, and purchase loans of $191 million were made, which were eventually repaid. A much larger program was $778 million in loans (at effective rates of about 1% interest) to 950,000 tenant farmers. The goal was to make the farmer more efficient so the loans were used for new machinery, trucks, or animals, or to repay old debts. At all times, the borrower was closely advised by a government agent. Family needs were on the agenda, as the FSA set up a [[Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act|health insurance]] program and taught farm wives how to cook and raise children. Upward of a third of the amount was never repaid, as the tenants moved to much better opportunities in the cities.<ref>Meriam pp. 290–312</ref>

The FSA was also one of the authorities administering relief efforts in the U.S. Virgin Islands and [[Puerto Rico]] during the Great Depression. Between 1938 and 1945, under the [[Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration]], it oversaw the purchase of 590 farms with the intent of distributing land to working and middle-class Puerto Ricans.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Economic History of Puerto Rico|last=Dietz|first=James|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=1986|location=Princeton|pages=200}}</ref>

===Modernization===
The FSA resettlement communities appear in the literature as efforts to ameliorate the wretched condition of southern sharecroppers and tenants, but those evicted to make way for the new settlers are virtually invisible in the historic record. The resettlement projects were part of larger efforts to modernize rural America. The removal of former tenants and their replacement by FSA clients in the lower [[Mississippi]] alluvial plain—the Delta—reveals core elements of New Deal modernizing policies. The key concepts that guided the FSA's tenant removals were: the definition of rural poverty as rooted in the problem of tenancy; the belief that economic success entailed particular cultural practices and social forms; and the commitment by those with political power to gain local support. These assumptions undergirded acceptance of racial segregation and the criteria used to select new settlers. Alternatives could only become visible through political or legal action—capacities sharecroppers seldom had. In succeeding decades, though, these modernizing assumptions created conditions for Delta African Americans on resettlement projects to challenge white supremacy.<ref>Jane Adams and D. Gorton, "This Land Ain't My Land: The Eviction of Sharecroppers by the Farm Security Administration," ''Agricultural History'' Summer 2009, Vol. 83 Issue 3, pp. 323–51</ref>

===FSA and its contribution to society===
The [[documentary photography]] genre describes photographs that would work as a time capsule for evidence in the future or a certain method that a person can use for a frame of reference. Facts presented in a photograph can speak for themselves after the viewer gets time to analyze it. The motto of the FSA was simply, as [[Beaumont Newhall]] insists, "not to inform us, but to move us."{{citation needed|date=March 2013}} Those photographers wanted the government to move and give a hand to the people, as they were completely neglected and overlooked, thus they decided to start taking photographs in a style that we today call "documentary photography." The FSA photography has been influential due to its realist point of view, and because it works as a frame of reference and an educational tool from which later generations could learn. Society has benefited and will benefit from it for more years to come, as this photography can unveil the ambiguous and question the conditions that are taking place.<ref>Bill Ganzel, "FSA photography," ''Farming in the 1930s'' (2003): 1–3.</ref>

===Photography program===

The RA and FSA are well known for the influence of their photography program, 1935–1944. Photographers and writers were hired to report and document the plight of poor farmers.  The Information Division (ID) of the FSA was responsible for providing educational materials and press information to the public. Under [[Roy Stryker]], the ID of the FSA adopted a goal of "introducing America to Americans." Many of the most famous Depression-era photographers were fostered by the FSA project. [[Walker Evans]], [[Dorothea Lange]], and [[Gordon Parks]] were three of the most famous FSA alumni.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Journalism|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediajour00ster_321|url-access=limited|last=Hudson|first=Berkley|publisher=SAGE|year=2009|isbn=978-0-7619-2957-4|editor-last=Sterling|editor-first=Christopher H.|location=Thousand Oaks, Calif.|pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediajour00ster_321/page/n1094 1060]–67}}</ref> The FSA was also cited in Gordon Parks' autobiographical novel, ''A Choice of Weapons''.

The FSA's photography was one of the first large-scale visual documentations of the lives of African-Americans.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cossu-Beaumont |first1=Laurence |title=Twelve Million Black Voices: Let Us Now Hear Black Voices |journal=Transatlantica |date=30 December 2014 |issue=2 |doi=10.4000/transatlantica.7232|doi-access=free }}</ref> These images were widely disseminated through the ''[[Twelve Million Black Voices]]'' collection, published in October 1941, which combined FSA photographs selected by [[Edwin Rosskam]] and text by author and poet [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]].

===Photographers===
Fifteen photographers (ordered by year of hire) would produce the bulk of work on this project. Their diverse, visual documentation elevated government's mission from the "relocation" tactics of a Resettlement Administration to strategic solutions which would depend on America recognizing rural and already poor Americans, facing death by depression and dust. '''FSA photographers:''' [[Arthur Rothstein]] (1935), [[Theodor Jung]] (1935), [[Ben Shahn]] (1935), [[Walker Evans]] (1935), [[Dorothea Lange]] (1935), [[Carl Mydans]] (1935), [[Russell Lee (photographer)|Russell Lee]] (1936), [[Marion Post Wolcott]] (1936), [[John Vachon]] (1936, photo assignments began in 1938), [[Jack Delano]] (1940), [[John Collier Jr.|John Collier]] (1941), [[Marjory Collins]] (1941), [[Louise Rosskam]] (1941), [[Gordon Parks]] (1942) and [[Esther Bubley]] (1942).

With America's entry into World War II, FSA would focus on a different kind of relocation as orders were issued for internment of Japanese Americans. FSA photographers would be transferred to the Office of War Information during the last years of the war and completely disbanded at the war's end. Photographers like [https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=howard%20hollem Howard R. Hollem], [[Alfred T. Palmer]], [[Arthur Siegel (photographer)|Arthur Siegel]] and OWI's Chief of Photographers [https://findingaids.utc.edu/agents/people/61 John Rous] were working in OWI before FSA's reorganization there. As a result of both teams coming under one unit name, these other individuals are sometimes associated with RA-FSA's pre-war images of American life. Though collectively credited with thousands of Library of Congress images, military ordered, positive-spin assignments like these four received starting in 1942, should be separately considered from pre-war, depression triggered imagery. FSA photographers were able to take time to study local circumstances and discuss editorial approaches with each other before capturing that first image. Each one talented in her or his own right, equal credit belongs to Roy Stryker who recognized, hired and empowered that talent.
<gallery>
File:John Collier, Jr.jpg|[[John Collier Jr.]]
Image:Jack Delano 8b00038r.jpg|[[Jack Delano]]
Image:Walker Evans 1937-02.jpg|[[Walker Evans]]
File:Dorothea Lange 1936 portrait.jpg|[[Dorothea Lange]]
Image:Portrait of Russell Lee, FSA (Farm Security Administration) photographer.jpg|[[Russell Lee (photographer)|Russell Lee]]
File:Carl Mydans 3c22476v.jpg|[[Carl Mydans]]
Image:Gordon Parks.jpg|[[Gordon Parks]]
Image:Arthur Rothstein 8a22587r (retouch).jpg|[[Arthur Rothstein]]
Image:John Vachon 8c51722r.jpg|[[John Vachon]]
Image:MarionPostWolcott.jpg|[[Marion Post Wolcott]]
</gallery>

These 15 photographers, some shown above, all played a significant role, not only in producing images for this project, but also in molding the resulting images in the final project through conversations held between the group members. The photographers produced images that breathed a humanistic social visual catalyst of the sort found in novels, theatrical productions, and music of the time. Their images are now regarded as a "national treasure" in the United States, which is why this project is regarded as a work of art.<ref>{{Cite book
| edition = 4th
| isbn = 9780789209375
| last = Rosenblum
| first = Naomi, April Morganroth
| title = A World History of Photography
| year = 2007
}}</ref>

[[File:Pabst Blue Ribbon beer sign in Chicago.jpg|thumb|Photograph of [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago's]] rail yards by [[Jack Delano]], ''circa'' 1943]]
Together with [[John Steinbeck]]'s ''The Grapes of Wrath'' (not a government project) and documentary prose (for example Walker Evans and [[James Agee]]'s ''[[Let Us Now Praise Famous Men]]''), the FSA photography project is most responsible for creating the image of the Depression in the United States. Many of the images appeared in popular magazines. The photographers were under instruction from Washington, DC, as to what overall impression the New Deal wanted to portray. Stryker's agenda focused on his faith in social engineering, the poor conditions among tenant cotton farmers, and the very poor conditions among migrant farm workers; above all, he was committed to social reform through New Deal intervention in people's lives.  Stryker demanded photographs that "related people to the land and vice versa" because these photographs reinforced the RA's position that poverty could be controlled by "changing land practices." Though Stryker did not dictate to his photographers how they should compose the shots, he did send them lists of desirable themes, for example, "church", "court day", and "barns". Stryker sought photographs of migratory workers that would tell a story about how they lived day-to-day. He asked Dorothea Lange to emphasize cooking, sleeping, praying, and socializing.<ref>Finnegan 43–44</ref> RA-FSA made 250,000 images of rural poverty. Fewer than half of those images survive and are housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.  The library has placed all 164,000 developed negatives online.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html |title=164,000 RA-FSA photographs|publisher=Library of Congress|access-date=2012-10-26}}</ref> From these, some 77,000 different finished photographic prints were originally made for the press, plus 644 color images, from 1600 negatives.