Picturing Texas: The FSA-OWI Photographers in the Lone Star State, 1935-1943

The Editorial review above will give you an idea about the contents, though what it doesn't say is that this is only one of two FSA state photo titles that could be called an art photo book (the other is Times of Sorrow & Hope Cmbk: Documenting Everyday Life in Pennsylvania During the Depression and World War II : A Photographic Record). With just over two hundred duotones, printed with a 175 screen, the best of FSA-OWI work taken in Texas is in these pages and it looks a treat. Author Robert Reid knows his stuff having done similar photo books about Minnesota, Indiana and Chicago. The eleven chapters look at the FSA coverage with an excellent essay for each before the portfolio of images. Incidentally all the photos are all properly captioned and include the neg numbers. The chapter on San Augustine interested me. Twenty-five photos by Lee and Vachon are shown, between them they took more than six hundred and with Lee's work in Pie Town in New Mexico, these two places had finest photo coverage than any other in the FSA collection (I'm waiting for some enterprising publisher to do a book of these two towns). With just the twenty-five shown here you do get a feel of life in San Augustine during 1939 and 1943. The last chapter has seventeen photos about the war effort in the Texas including a couple showing women working on aircraft, jobs that until the war started would never have been anything other than a male preserve. Reid has written and selected photos that present a fascinating look at the state and presented in a brilliant landscape photo book format. ***LOOK INSIDE THE BOOK by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

It is ironic that a book documenting this era in Texas history would command such a price. For those who love Texas and Texas history this book contains moving photographs that document the struggles of pre war, poor Texans in the late 30's and early 40's. Compare and contrast the images of migrant farmers and sharecroppers with the relatively well to do cattlemen and oil field workers. For me, it was worth the price.

The depression-era Farm Security Administration photographs are some of the best examples of documentary photography in America. Some of the collector volumes are out of range price-wise, but this is a wonderful series within any budget. Highly recommended.