Editing Farm Security Administration (section)

===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.