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When people need pictures about life in the United States during the Great Depression and World War II, they frequently find fascinating photographs in the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Collection.
This subject index improves online access to the FSA/OWI photographs by enabling browsing using the subjects assigned in the 1940s, when the vast FSA/OWI collection was organized. It makes it possible to view FSA/OWI photographs by such broad topics as “manufacturing“ and such specific topics as “boot making,” even if those words do not appear in the original captions. Viewing the images by subject category also helps researchers compare how various photographers, in different places, at different times conveyed similar subject matter.
To facilitate searching for images, the subject index is presented here in two arrangements:
- Classification numbers, which group photographs with related subject matter together, even if their subjects would be widely separated alphabetically (e.g., grouped together in the Agriculture category are photos relating to plowing and to fertilizing). This grouping by classification number is how the printed photos are organized in the physical FSA/OWI file in the Prints & Photographs Division Reading Room. (The photos are still in file cabinets as shown in the photo above of “picture selection.”).
- Alphabetical by subject words from the heading cards in the FSA/OWI file, with the corresponding classification number. This enables one to look for a particular subject word and find the photos that were assigned the classification number.
