Everything doesn’t necessarily look worse in black and white as Paul Simon contends in “Kodachrome.” And not everything the government touches turns to s*it. These are the truisms I gather looking at old B & W photos from the Library of Congress Web site. The below shots in particular come from the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection. The collection features tons of photos chronicling the Great Depression, Dust Bowl and World War II Years.
Children playing in Lafayette, La., by Russell Lee.
Russell Lee was one of the photographers who was part of the government-sponsored FSA-OSI photography project. I always admired how he could bring out the character and personality of his subjects such as in this shot below.
East Texan, Jacksonville, Texas, by Russell Lee.
John Vachon was, likewise, a master at making every picture tell a story. As in this photograph from during World War II in my old stomping grounds of Beaumont, Texas, proves.
A woman mechanic for the transit system in Beaumont, Texas, uses a hoist, by John Vachon.
A number of political conservatives of the current and past ilk find some sort of “creeping socialism” in the New Deal programs that put many back to work after the Depression. Among those who were given jobs were artists. But a nation without history is a nation without its soul. And photographers like Lee and Vachon — through the government programs — left us images of our historical soul in what were some dark times in the old U.S.A.
The fact that these images of our past remain and they are accessible freely through the Web makes me think that such projects can be listed if someone ever asks you: What good is our government? Of course, the other good that the government does is printing wonderfully wacky images on their paper money. An eye on top of the pyramid (back of the $1 bill)? What were those folks smoking?