Date of Award
5-17-2012
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Heritage Studies, Ph.D.
First Advisor
Clyde Milner
Committee Members
Brady Banta; Debra Chappel Traylor
Call Number
LD251 .A566d 2012 H33
Abstract
This dissertation analyzes the Farm Security Administration's photographic record of the Mississippi Delta region in Arkansas primarily in the Blytheville to Helena corridor. Each chapter analyzes the images captured by such renowned photographers as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Carl Mydans as they traveled extensively throughout the South to document the American experience during the Great Depression. Natural disasters such as the 1937 Ohio-Mississippi River flood contributed greatly to the need for federal assistance in eastern Arkansas. Raging waters destroyed crops, homes, and livestock in record amounts. The images reflect economic hard times for Arkansas residents compounded by a devastating flood. The pictures taken by Edwin Locke and Walker Evans show segregated refugee camps created by the Red Cross to assist thousands of displaced sharecroppers and others who lost all their family belongings. Concerned citizens undertook political actions to protect property including the much-needed development of the St. Francis Levee District. Through these photographs, I argue that the FSA used the flood as an opportunity to promote need for government's role in land conservation and social programs. Another set of FSA photographs examines the plight of the Arkansas migrants and discusses the factors contributing to out-migration. The out-migration in the 1930s was a continuation of early migratory patterns made more complex by the economic situation. This collection of images show that Arkansas families chose to follow the berry picking trails in Michigan rather than going west to California like the Oklahoma migrants. They still carried all of their meager belongings with them on their backs or packed into jalopies showing years of wear and patching. The role of the federal government in providing programs for migrants, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers appears several times. The FSA photographs reveal the marked differences in resettlement housing projects such as Dyess Colony in eastern Arkansas and the migrant labor camps like the one in Arvin, California. The destitution shown in the pictures from the camps, who accepted everyone who applied, compare dramatically with the images from Dyess Colony where sharecroppers had to apply and be accepted before taking up residency.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Hunter, Marjorie Jo, "Hope and Despair: The Farm Security Administration Photographs" (2012). Student Theses and Dissertations. 863.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/863
