DOCUMERICA: The Photographers
DOCUMERICA PHOTOGRAPHER, DAVID HISER, AT DEAD HORSE POINT, 05/1972
David Hiser, photographer*
For the DOCUMERICA project, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hired nearly 100 freelance photographers to capture images relating to environmental problems, EPA activities, and everyday life in the 1970s. A panel of these photographers discuss their work shown in the exhibit, “Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project,” including Jack Corn, Lyntha Scott Eiler, Tom Hubbard, Michael Philip Manheim, and John C. White. Presented in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Thursday, April 18, at 7 p.m. at the National Archives William G. McGowan Theater. (Enter the National Archives Building through the Special Events entrance on Constitution Ave. )
(*Note that David Hiser will not be on the panel, but this is one of the few self-portraits in the DOCUMERICA series.)
DOCUMERICA - one of our favorite series gets an exhibit of its own!
Here’s a behind-the-scenes peak at the what our Exhibits staff are working on!
Bad fashion, odd fads, and disco dance music sum up the 1970s for many Americans. But “Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project” takes a new look at the decade’s trends, fashions, and cultural shifts through color photographs taken for Project DOCUMERICA, a Federal photography project.
The exhibit opens March 8 and runs through September 8, 2013, at the National Archives in Washington, DC. Admission is free!
Happy Facial Hair Friday! This self portrait, with carefully groomed mustache in the center, is a glamorous photo of a hardworking, groundbreaking photographer.
James Stephen “Steve” Wright was from a working-class family in Washington, DC. By the 1940s he was head of photographic operations for the Federal Works Agency.
In an interview with Nicholas Natason, Wright recalled that “In those days, it was tough for a black man even to become a file clerk in the government … You had to mind your P’s and Q’s, because there were lower-level whites who resented the fact that you were doing photography at all and were waiting for you to stumble.”
But Wright was extremely good at his job; he was efficient, diplomatic and organized. In 1957, Wright was appointed as Photographic Branch Chief at the Department of State. He created State’s first central file on diplomatic personalities, events, and facilities.
Read the full story of Wright’s Federal career over on the Pieces of History blog.
Image: Steve Wright during his Federal Works Agency days. National Archives (208-NP-IY-1).
Second Lieutenant George E. Stone, Signal Corps, United States Army, in charge Fourth Army Corps Photo Unit. Cochem, Germany., 01/09/1919
Spinners and doffers in Lancaster Cotton Mills. Dozens of them in this mill. Lancaster, S.C., 12/01/1908
Lewis Wickes Hine, photographer. From the series: National Child Labor Committee Photographs taken by Lewis Hine
Happy Birthday, Lewis Hine
Breaker boys. Smallest is Angelo Ross. Hughestown Borough Coal Co. Pittston, Pa., 01/16/1911
Born September 26, 1874, investigative photographer Lewis Wickes Hine used his camera as both a research tool and an instrument of social reform. This photograph is one of a series given to the Children’s Bureau by the National Child Labor Committee. The almost five hundred photographs represent a fraction of the approximately 5,000 photographs Hine took for the committee to document working and living conditions for children.
Hine’s efforts were nearly forgotten when he passed away in 1940, but his work has seen a resurgence in interest. What’s your favorite Lewis Hine photo?
“Edison, Kern County, California. Young migratory mother, originally from Texas. On the day before the photograph was made she and her husband traveled 35 miles each way to pick peas. They worked 5 hours each and together earned $2.25. They have two young children… Live in auto camp. “ 04/11/1940
—Dorothea Lange, Photographer.
The photo is one of a series taken by Dorothea Lange and Irving Rusinow for an agricultural “Community Stability and Instability” study by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and which now form a record of pre-World War II rural life and social institutions.
In 1933, after submitting an outline for an introductory photographic survey of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) projects, Lewis W. Hine was hired to do a one month assignment in East Tennessee. This photo of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers was taken November 17, 1933.
“Newly-arrived replacements at CCC Camp, TVA #22, near Esco, Tennessee, lined up before their first meal in camp. The boys arrived at New Tazewell on November 17, 1933, in day coaches form New York, tired and hungry, but eager for their new life. For many of these boys, this was their first time away from home.”
Happy Birthday, Lewis Hine
Breaker boys. Smallest is Angelo Ross. Hughestown Borough Coal Co. Pittston, Pa., 01/16/1911
Born September 26, 1874, investigative photographer Lewis Wickes Hine used his camera as both a research tool and an instrument of social reform. This photograph is one of a series given to the Children’s Bureau by the National Child Labor Committee. The almost five hundred photographs represent a fraction of the approximately 5,000 photographs Hine took for the committee to document working and living conditions for children.
May 26 - “…Children in a democracy…” by Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange, whose photographs of the unemployed and migratory farm workers became synonymous with the Great Depression, was born on May 26, 1895.
The caption of this photo reads “On Arizona Highway 87, south of Chandler. Maricopa County, Arizona. Children in a democracy. A migratory family living in a trailer in an open field. No sanitation, no water. They came from Amarillo, Texas. Pulled bolls near Amarillo, picked cotton near Roswell, New Mexico, and in Arizona. Plan to return to Amarillo at close of cotton picking season for work on WPA. 11/1940”
