Carl Mydans

Carl Mydans was a renowned photographer for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), a program implemented in 1935 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in an effort to alleviate American rural poverty. Mydans saw his photographic practice as an endeavor in documentary and journalism—his first jobs were for the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. He then traveled America, notably in the South, photographing impoverished families struggling through the Great Depression. As a solider during World War II, Mydans captured devastating images of the war’s effects in Europe and Asia. After returning from war, Mydans became one of the first staff photographers of Life magazine. Photographs taken from NYPL Archives.