This web site provides a guide and curriculum activities for teachers and students interested in using the photographs taken by the Farm Security Administration (an American "New Deal" Federal
government agency). It is based, in part, on a curriculum guide developed for the Southeast Museum of Photography and the exhibition Farm Security Administration Photographs of Florida,
which was based on the book by Michael Carlebach and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr.. Farm Security Photographs of Florida
(Gainseville: University Press of Florida, 1993). For those not familiar with Farm Security Administration and its programs, the FSA was a New Deal agency
established in 1935. Its purpose was to develop and administer programs to aid destitute farmers and farm workers during the Great Depression. Photographers employed in the agency's Historical
Section described economic and social conditions in America, especially in hard-hit rural areas, as well the various activities of the agency. The FSA photographs are the most famous series of
photographs to come out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. They are an extraordinary record of the American experience. In Florida, FSA photographers traveled throughout the farm areas, taking
pictures of migrants and their families, of farmers laid low by hard times and of decrepit houses and ruined land. In addition, the director of the photography project, Roy Emerson Stryker,
encouraged FSA photographers in Florida to document life in wealthy and middle-class enclaves as well as in tourist camps along the coast. This additional coverage was unique, and combined with
the images made of the crisis in the farming regions, provide contemporary viewers with a compelling and wide-ranging view of the state as it was a half century ago. The FSA photographs are
preserved in the Prints and Photography Division of the Library of Congress as part of the American Memory Project.
Approximately 270,000 images are included as part of the collection. A total of approximately 55,000 of the black and white images from the collection are now available online and approximately 1,600 color photographs. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html
This web site provides teachers and students with ideas about how to use the FSA Florida photographs to explore Florida's recent historical past and
to discover and document Florida today. It is intended primarily for middle school and secondary level students--particularly those taking Florida or
American history--but can be adapted for use at other levels as well. Click on the location buttons on the left hand side of this web site to
connect to activities and resources, or to the map below to view FSA photographs taken in different parts of the state. |
