Peter Sekaer: Slum Conditions in America

To most people, federally-sponsored photography during the New Deal means the splendid file of images created by the Resettlement Administration–later the Farm Security Administration of the Department of Agriculture. Understandable as it is, this equation simplifies truth. By the time of Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration in March 1933, the use of photography was commonplace in the federal bureaucracy, reflecting practices that had been developing for more than half a century. Since the Civil War, federal officials had profited from the precision of photography and from its deceptive appearance of objectivity to preserve information and sometimes to influence opinion. A few government projects had resulted in compelling educational documentations that were also recognized as compelling art. Most notably, photographers like John Hillers, William Henry Jackson, Timothy O'sullivan, and Carleton Watkins, tested by the opportunity to expand the possibilities of their medium while addressing a great national theme, had compiled in their records of the exploration of the West documentations that helped to change public policy by providing images with the power to crystallize the country's sense of its identity and potential growth.