Today photographers may show the consumerism flavor of a struggling economy. They could show many “toys” despite much debt, or evidence of former toys and a lost lifestyle due to a lost job. The people in photographs dealing with a struggling economy will consistently contain crow’s feet and furrowed brows, if a little more subtle currently. Evans chose to use buildings instead of facial lines. Roy Stryker instructed his photographers to capture people with the land. The desires of the government are not so easily met in reality. For example, we cannot use the fact that Barack Obama won the presidency as proof of progress in Racism, we cannot use the appearance of African Americans in fashion modeling either. Poverty was more than people working with the land and racism is more than just an old hatred. Racism is insidious and deep, difficult to overturn within an impassioned generation.

In Let Us Now Praise Famous Men selected places and families were photographed because they were the roughest parts. The areas hit hardest by the depression and poverty, as identified by Roy Stryker. No photograph is truly objective unless it was an accidental shot with the photographer not in control of the camera. Even then, it’s position is probably attributable to the photographer. It was not an accident that these photographs were taken, and they should have been taken- to reveal what most people might ignore in that same vicinity. Despite the many pictures of worn out buildings, tools and people there were still the occasional article of clothing that did not appear so tattered. For example, the hats in some pictures looked as if they could be brand new. There was a store in the row, one in the background that was better kept. Little glimpses of the more familiar neat, and running. What Roy Stryker wanted was the poorest of the poor and how they might improve through the tenant program. I would venture to say that Walker Evans was fired because he also threw in what interested him. Evans had experience studying architecture in New England, 1931 (Nordeman). Walker Evans was interested in architectural design. These designs were not necessarily abandoned, in disuse or in need of repair. They had no direct connection to the poor or how their welfare was improving, but they could represent them. A deserted rundown store shows the lack of support the impoverished could lend to the storekeeper, who then also struggled in those small communities.

Nordeman, Landon. Weblog. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug97/fsa/welcome.html