University of Louisville Special Collections
Best known as the man who directed the taking of over 150,000 photographs for the Farm Security Administration during the New Deal era, Roy Stryker (1893-1975) is one of the most prominent figures in the development of American documentary photography. In addition to the Farm Security Administration photographs, Stryker directed documentary projects for the Standard Oil (New Jersey) Company (1943-1950), the city of Pittsburgh (1950-1951) and Jones & Laughlin Steel (1952-1958.) His papers reveal the thinking and planning behind these major photographic documentaries, making them a unique resource invaluable for research in both the social history of America between the '30s and '50s and the history of photography.
The Stryker Papers include Stryker's correspondence, personal collection of photographs from projects he supervised, and biographical and secondary materials relating to the projects and his career.
The Stryker papers and a printed guide are available through interlibrary loan from the Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville and are available for purchase from Chadwyck-Healey. The guide lists correspondence by year. Other materials are cataloged at the container level.
The Schinas Addition to the Stryker Papers contains Stryker's correspondence during the SONJ projects, mostly 1943-1950, in chronological order. Other materials include photographer's captions and records, exhibition notes, administrative records and memos and secondary printed matter indexed at the folder level. A printed finding aid is available at the Photographic Archives.
In addition to the papers, the Photographic Archives holds all of the negatives, prints and transparencies from the Standard Oil project and all of the original negatives and transparencies from the Jones & Laughlin Steel project.
Finding Aid to the Roy Stryker Papers: Series 4: Photographs
Many of the same photographers who worked with Stryker in the FSA and OWI followed him to Standard Oil when he was hired to improve the corporation's public image. Photographs were made freely available for any use, appearing in newspapers and major magaz ines as well as oil-related publications. Photos were arranged in volumes to be browsed, and loose prints of the most popular were kept in vertical files; the original arrangement has been maintained.
Many images are directly related to oil production, but Stryker stretched the idea that oil touches daily life to include pictures of children playing, farmers in fields, cowboys, people at worship, fishermen, and an occasional kitten. Some groups were c onceived as a narrative, such as Bus Story, Harbor Story, and the massive River Story.
Other notable groups include Ocrakoke and Hatteras Islands, production stills of the film "Louisiana Story", and copy photos of early oil production images. 60 of the volumes are of areas outside the continental U.S.
The Standard Oil (New Jersey) (SONJ) Collection consists of:
Captions identify the name of the photographer, date, location, and caption information, often including subject's names. The dates of images are from 1943-1963, with the majority in the 1950's.
The primary finding aids are printed volume lists divided by subject headings, lists of volumes by location, and lists of subject folders. A searchable database of the volumes is in progress and available at the Photographic Archives.
Books featuring SONJ photographs:
The Highway as Habitat: A Roy Stryker Documentation, 1943-1955.
Ulrich Keller.
University Art Museum, Santa Barbara CA, 1986.
ISBN-0-942006-11-9
[TR646.U62 S264 1986]
Out of the Forties.
Nicholas Lemann.
Texas Monthly Press, Austin TX, 1983.
(reprint) Washington, DC : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998.
ISBN-0-932012-35-3
[E169 .L54 1985]
Roy Stryker: The Humane Propagandist.
James C. Anderson, ed.
University of Louisville Photographic Archives, Louisville KY, 1977.
[TR820.5 .R69]
This 63 page book features 50 photos from Stryker-directed projects, including 15 SONJ photos. Available from the Photographic Archives for $5.00 plus $1.50 shipping.
Roy Stryker: U.S.A., 1943-1950. The Standard Oil (New Jersey) Photography Project.
Steven W. Plattner.
University of Texas Press, Austin TX, 1983.
ISBN-0-292-77028-6
[TR820.5 .P57 1983]
The Way We Were: New England Now, New England Then.
Daniel Okrent.
Grove Weidenfeld, New York, 1989.
ISBN-1-55584-358-1
[F10 .O38 1989]
The last major photographic project headed by Stryker was sponsored by the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation in Pittsburgh, from 1952 to 1958. This project was conducted for their Public Relations Department to provide a photographic record of the s teel industry.
The collection contains:
University of Louisville Photographic Archives
The Farm Security Administration (FSA)
Photographers from Stryker-directed projects
Roy E. Stryker
FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (FSA)
FSA Photographs from the Library of Congress
Southern FSA Photographs and Essay
Bibliography at the Library of Congress
Bibliography-
Photographers of the Farm Security Administration: An Annotated Bibliography, 1930-1980.
Penelope Dixon.
New York: Garland Publishing, 1983.
[Z7136.D63 D59 1983, TR820.5]
Documenting America, 1935-1943.
Carl Fleischhauer and Beverly Brannan.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
[E806 .D616 1988]
The Politics of Propaganda: The Office of War Information, 1942-1945.
Allan M. Winkler.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.
[D810.P7 U8 ]
Mind's Eye, Mind's Truth : FSA Photography Reconsidered.
James Curtis, 1992.
Philadelphia : Temple University Press, c1989.
[TR820.5 .C87 1989]
The Years of Bitterness and Pride : Farm Security Administration, FSA Photographs, 1935-1943
Walker Evans et. al.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975.
[HC106.3 .Y4]
Farm Security Administration, historical section : a guide to textual records in the Library of Congress.
Annette Melville.
Washington : Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, 1985.
[TR820.5 .M44 1985]
Photographers of the Farm Security Administration : An
Annotated Bibliography, 1930-1980
(Garland Reference Library of the Humanities ; Vol. 373)
Penelope Dixon, 1983.
The Roy Stryker Papers are held by the University of Louisville Photographic Archives. The complete Papers are availble on microfilm. Series 4: Photographs are available online.
Archives of American Art, National Portrait Gallery (Washington, D.C.) holds transcribed interviews with several FSA/OWI photographers and staff, as well as microfilms of personal papers lent by Roy Stryker and others.
Pittsburgh Photographic Library
Bibliography-
In This Proud Land: America, 1935-1943, as seen in the FSA Photographs.
Roy E. Stryker and Nancy C. Wood.
N.Y.: Galahad Books, 1973.
[TR820.5.S87]
Roy Stryker: U.S.A., 1943-1950: the Standard Oil (New Jersey) photography project
Steven W. Plattner.
Austin : University of Texas Press, 1983.
[TR820.5 .P57 1983]
Portrait of a Decade: Roy Stryker and the Development of Documentary Photography in the Thirties.
Jack F. Hurley
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972.
[TR820.5 .H87 1977]
Bibliography-
Berenice Abbott at Work: The Making of Changing New York
Bonnie Yochelson, 1997 .
New York : New Press : Museum of the City of New York, c1997.
[TR25.N7 Y63 1997]
Berenice Abbott, Photographer : A Modern Vision : a selection of photographs and essays.
Julia Van Haaften, 1989.
[New York] : New York Public Library, 1989.
[TR647 .A23 1989]
Photographs from Look Magazine
Photograph
In addition to her images in the Pittsburgh Photographic Library, substantial holdings are maintained at:
Bibliography-
Let Us Now Praise Famous Women: Women Photographers for the US Government, 1935 to 1944.
Andrea Fisher.
London ; New York : Pandora Press, 1987.
[TR820.5 .L48 1987]
Bibliography-
Carnegie Mellon: A Portrait.
Harold Corsini, 1986.
Pittsburgh, Pa. : Carnegie Mellon University, c1986.
[LD791.C89 C67 1986]
Interview at the Archives of American Art
Photographs
FSA Photograph
Photographs
Bibliography-
Visual Anthropology: Photography As a Research Method.
John Collier Jr., et. al., 1986.
Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, c1986.
[GN347 .C64 1986]
Threads of culture: Photography in New Mexico, 1939-1943: Russell Lee, John Collier, Jr.,
Jack Delano : the Pinewood Collection of FSA photographs.
Museum of Fine Arts (Museum of New Mexico)1993
[LC call number TR820.5 .T52 1993]
Bibliography-
Photographic Memories: The Autobiography of Jack Delano.
Jack Delano.
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.
[TR140.D43 D43 1997]
Far from Main Street : three photographers in depression-era New Mexico
Russell Lee, John Collier, Jr., Jack Delano ; essays by J.B. Colson et al.
Santa Fe : Museum of New Mexico Press, c1994.
[F797 .L44 1994]
Puerto Rico Mio: Four Decades of Change, in Photographs by Jack Delano
Jack Delano, Alan Fern, Arturo M. Carrion
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990.
Pittsburgh Photographs
Photographs of New York tenement life
Photographs from One Third of a Nation Exhibit
Bibliography-
At Home Only With God : Believing Jews and Their Children.
Arthur Hertzberg, Arnold Eagle (Photographer), 1992
A Brooklyn bridge to Morrisville.
Ralph C. Benedict, with photographs by Arnold Eagle.
[LB1029.C6 B4 ]
Walker Evans Revolutionizes Documentary Photography
Holdings-
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Artcyclopedia
Bibliography-
"Scavenging the Landscape: Walker Evans and American Life."
Melissa Rachlef.
Afterimage, Jan-Feb 1996 v23 n4 p7(5).
Walker Evans: Photographs for the Farm Security Administration,
1935-1938.
Introduction by Jerald C. Maddox.
N.Y.: Da Capo Press, 1973.
[LC call number HN57.D22 1973]
Walker Evans at work: 745 photographs together with documents selected from letters, memoranda, interviews, notes.
Walker Evans.
New York : Harper & Row, c1982.
TR820.5 .E89 1982
Migrant Mother Photographs
More FSA Migrant Photographs
FSA Photograph
More FSA Photographs
Japanese Internment Photographs
Bibliography-
Dorothea Lange: A Visual Life.
Elizabeth Partridge, ed.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.
[LC call number TR140.L3D67 1994]
Dorothea Lange: Farm Security Administration
Photographs, 1935-1939, from the Library of Congress.
Dorothea Lange.
Glencoe, Ill.: Text-Fiche Press, 198O. [2 vols. with 17 fiche containing 1,354 photographs.]
[LC call number HN57.L32]
An American Exodus.
Dorothea Lange and Paul S. Taylor.
New Haven, Published for the Oakland Museum [by] Yale University Press, 1969.
HD1525 .L3 1969
"Images of the common good." Louis C. Gawthrop. Public
Administration Review, Nov-Dec 1993 53 n6 p508-515
"Dorothea Lange and visionary change." (photographer's role in changing public perceptions about poverty)
Louis C. Gawthrop.
Society, July-August 1993 v30 n5 p64(4)
Standard Oil Photograph
Pittsburgh Photographs
Texas Photographs
Bibliography-
Russell Lee: Photographer.
F. Jack Hurley.
Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Morgan & Morgan, 1978.
[R820.5.L42]
FSA Photographs of Chamisal and Penasco, New Mexico.
Edited by William Wroth.
Santa Fe, N.M.: Ancient City Press, 1985.
[F804.C46L43 1985]
Far from Main Street : Three Photographers in Depression-Era New Mexico.
Russell Lee, et al.
Santa Fe : Museum of New Mexico Press, c1994.
[F797 .L44 1994]
"A human focus: Russell Lee's long-neglected images of Spanish-speaking Texans reveal the photographer at his compassionate best".
Texas Monthly, Volume 15, March 1987, p.120.
Pittsburgh Photographs
Photographs
Biography
Biography and photographs
Bibliography-
Ohio, A Photographic Portrait, 1935-1941 : Farm Security Administration photographs.
Carl Mydans et al.
Akron, Ohio : Akron Art Institute, c1980.
[F492 .O3893]
Carl Mydans : Photojournalist.
Carl Mydans.
New York : Abrams, c1985.
[TR820 .M93 1985]
Holdings-
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
MARTHA MCMILLAN ROBERTS (1919-1992)
Bibliography-
Let us now praise famous women : women photographers for the U.S. Government, 1935 to 1944 : Esther Bubley, Marjory Collins, Pauline Ehrlich, Dorothea Lange, Martha McMillan Roberts, Marion Post Wolcott, Ann Rosener, Louise Rosskam
Andrea Fisher.
London ; New York : Pandora Press, 1987.
[TR820.5 .L48 1987]
Bibliography-
Towboat River.
Edwin and Louise Rosskam.
New York, Duell, Sloan and Pearce [1948]
[F354 .R75]
12 Million Black Voices.
Richard Wright, et. al.
New York, Viking Press, 1941.
[E185.6 .W9]
Roosevelt, New Jersey; Big Dreams in a Small Town & What
Time Did to Them.
Edwin Rosskam.
New York, Grossman, 1972.
[F144.R86 R6 1972]
San Francisco: West Coast Metropolis.
Edwin Rosskam.
New York: Alliance Publishing, 1939.
"Bliss on the Old Miss: The Rosskams and Towboat River"
Gary D. Saretzky.
Photo Review. 24.1-2 (2001): 6-16.
"Documenting Diversity: Edwin Rosskam & the Photo Book, 1940-41"
Gary D. Saretzky.
Photo Review. 23.4 (2000): 10-16.
"She Worked Her Head Off:: Edwin and Louise Rosskam & The Golden Age of
Documentary Photography Books"
Gary D. Saretzky.
Photo Review. 23.3 (2000): 2-10.
Bibliography-
Arthur Rothstein's America in Photographs, 1930-1980.
Arthur Rothstein.
New York : Dover, 1984.
[E169 .R835 1984]
Arthur Rothstein, Words and Pictures.
Arthur Rothstein.
New York : Amphoto/Billboard Publications, c1979.
[TR820 .R663 1079]
HoldingsSchomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Bibliography-
Ben Shahn, Photographer : An Album from the Thirties.
Ben Shahn.
New York, Da Capo Press, 1973.
[TR653 .S5 1973]
The photographic eye of Ben Shahn.
edited by Davis Pratt.
Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1975.
[TR820.5 .S48 1975]
"The politics of media: painting and photography in the art of Ben Shahn."
Laura Katzman.
American Art, Wntr 1993 v7 n1 p60(28).
FSA Photographs
FSA Photograph
Bibliography-
Poland, 1946 : the photographs and letters of John Vachon
edited by Ann Vachon; with an introduction by Brian Moore.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, c1995.
[TR820.5 .V33 1995]
Bibliography-
Looking Back : Memoirs and Photographs.
Todd Webb.
University of New Mexico Press, 1991.
[TR140.W38A3 1991]
Todd Webb : Photographs of New York and Paris, 1945-1960.
Keith Davis; with a reminiscence by Todd Webb.
Albuquerque, N.M. : Distributed by University of New
Mexico Press, c1986.
[F128.37 .D22 1986]
Letters from the Stryker Papers
Bibliography-
Looking for the Light : The Hidden Life and Art of Marion Post Wolcott.
Paul Hendrickson.
New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1992.
[TR140.W64 H46 1992]
Marion Post Wolcott: A Photographic Journey.
F. Jack Hurley.
Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1989.
[TR140.W64H87]
"What a time she had! (Fifty Years & Counting...)."
News Photographer, April 1995 v50 n4 pF2(3).