• Research Paper on:
    FSA Photography

    Number of Pages: 7

     

    Summary of the research paper:

    In seven pages this paper discusses how art and documentary concepts were addressed by the photography of the Farm Security Administration. Eight sources are cited in the bibliography.

    Name of Research Paper File: TG15_TGfsa.rtf

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    Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
    only formally chronicling a tragic event, but the faces of the people and the barren scenes portrayed continue to touch an emotional chord in everyone who sees them. These  stirring pictures have become an integral part of Americas "family album" 1It is recommended that the student who is writing about this subject consider that the Great Depression not only  forever changed Americas political and socioeconomic landscapes, but also strongly influenced the publics interpretation of what constitutes art. Photography is considered to be a form of artistic expression, a  creative reflection of the person behind the camera. However, during Depression era, photography was considered an important tool of the Roosevelt administration, which would allow the federal government to  directly appeal to citizens in order to gain support for a variety of economic and social reform programs. Photography provided the component of realism that the Roosevelt administration desperately  needed to articulate their ambitious domestic agenda, and was considered at length in Chapter 6 of John Taggs book, The Burden of Representation, "The Currency of the Photograph." In  this chapter, Tagg considered the relationship between photography and realism, and noted that there were several factors to consider. Was the photo truly realistic, or was it somehow "staged"  that way by the photographer in order to achieve a semblance of realism? This debate reached a fever pitch when FDR established the Resettlement Administration (RA) in 1935, which became  known as the Farm Security Administration (FSA) two years later, a subdivision of the Department of Agriculture.2 The Historical Section of the FSA, under the supervision of government bureaucrat  Roy Stryker, employed a relatively small group of photographers who amassed an astonishing output of 270,000 pictures between the years of 1935 (when it was still a part of the 

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