From Dustbowl and Dairy Farm to Defense Housing: Understanding the Farm Security Administration Photographs of Bath Iron Works

Abstract

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Roy Stryker and his team of photographers at the Farm Security Administration (FSA) set out to create images of America that could bolster the spirit of the country in the midst of economic depression and international war. By 1940, photographs of small towns and America’s increasing military capability were common. In December 1940, Stryker sent photographer Jack Delano to Bath, Maine, to document the housing shortage for workers at the Bath Iron Works. This assignment was part of the FSA’s project to monitor and record migrant populations during the Great Depression, with the goal of creating better housing opportunities for workers. Rachel Miller is a graduate student in American and New England Studies at the University of Southern Maine. She holds degrees from Vassar College and Trinity College, Dublin, and works as the Education Assistant at the Maine Historical Society. Her current research project explores Americanization programs in the Portland Public Schools between 1922 and 1945.