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Picturing America in the 1930s: Reading Farm Security Administration Photographs

The National Humanities Center is sponsoring a live, online professional development seminar for literature and history teachers entitled “Picturing America in the 1930s: Reading Farm Security Administration Photographs” on February 23, 2010. The deadline to register is February 16, 2010.The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was a New Deal agency founded to combat rural poverty. While it spent millions of dollars between 1935 and 1946 to improve the lives of poor farmers, it is remembered today for its documentary photography program. The photographs taken by FSA photographers in the 1930s have assumed iconic status and have come to define the look of the Great Depression. What can they teach about America in the 1930s? What can they tell us about the truth of documentary photography? How can we read them as images? The seminar will be led by Anthony W. Lee, associate professor of art, Mount Holyoke College. For more information, please see http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/index.htm.