Why Were These Photographs of the Great Depression Rejected and Scarred?

These iconic images of the Great Depression were not made public during the 1930s.

From 1934 to 1943, Roy Stryker was head of the FSA farm documentation project. There were many negatives he deemed unsuitable for printing. Some of the images have obvious flaws, such as blurred subjects or over-exposed areas. Other images seem to not have much going on, like a farmhouse against the background of a hill. Yet, some of the rejected images seem to show another side to our America. Distraught women seem to weep, eroded soil shows no sign of recovery, children pick through heaps of garbage (unaware that this is not a normal childhood), and children swim in an integrated (and makeshift) swimming pool. Perhaps Stryker thought that the public was not ready for these images. Of all the well-known and compelling images to come from the FSA projects, it is a bit shocking to know that there were more poignant ones still. The poverty that was depicted in the approved images tells only a part of the story.

Via/ Library of Congress
Via/ Library of Congress
Via/ Library of Congress
Via/ Library of Congress
Via/ Library of Congress

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