Georgia During the Great Depression: A Documentary Portrait of a Decade

During the Great Depression, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rexford Tugwell and his former Columbia student Roy Emerson Stryker spearheaded an effort to create a photographic portrait of the nation’s people and places. The result was a federal commission given to a number of photographers who traveled throughout the country to record the pride and perseverance, strengths and weaknesses of the people. Resulting in more than 2,500 photographs in Georgia alone, this project created a visual record of an influential period of American history. This pictorial album relies on the little-known pictures from this federal commission along with picture postcards, personal pictures and memorabilia, written records, and interviews to record and reconstruct a tale of the state’s resources, people, education, health, housing, labor and entertainment.The effects of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs are also emphasized. An appendix provides sketches of ten federally commissioned photographers who worked in Georgia, including Carl Mydans, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Jack Delano and Esther Bubley.