tography with great zeal. He produced over 6,000
negatives for Stryker, and his ‘‘Negro Sharecrop-
pers’’—published inSurvey Graphic(March 1936)—
was the second RA photograph to appear outside a
government publication. His images also appeared
in many important photo-texts—Archibald Mac-
Leish’sLand of the Free(1938), Sherwood Ander-
son’s Home Town (1940), and Richard Wright’s
Twelve Million Black Voices(1941)—as well as in
the RA’s traveling exhibits.
For his first field assignment, Shahn journeyed
through the mining towns of West Virginia and
Kentucky, and the cotton country of Arkansas and
Louisiana. Although he had traveled widely in Eur-
ope and North Africa, Shahn had never before jour-
neyed beyond America’s northeastern seaboard:
Off I went and boy, that shook me up [...] I found realities
there I had no idea about [...] Theories melted before such
experience [...] There was the South and its storytelling art,
stories of snakes and storms and haunted houses, unchang-
ing and yet such talent thriving in the same human shell
with hopeless prejudices, bigotry and ignorance.
(Martin et al. 2000; Shahn 1957)
While appalled by conditions in the South,
Shahn refused to trade in the rhetoric of heroic
fortitude or present his subjects as victims. Rather,
Shahn portrayed the concrete realities of economic
indenture and inequitable dependency. As opposed
to, for example, fellow-FSA photographer Dor-
othea Lange, Shahn did not seek visual icons, but
attempted to compile a more complete visual doc-
umentary. He went to great lengths to get to know
his subjects, often spending a number of days in a
community. In Roy Stryker’s view, compassion,
not technical proficiency, was Shahn’s trademark:
Something happens there in those pictures. Maybe it was
in the wonderful tolerance, sympathy and feeling he had
for people – for human beings. [...] I believe that he did
have the ability to reach out and reach into individuals by
his nature, his manner, his approach when he was taking
pictures. In some way people opened up.
(Greenfeld 1998)
The ideology of FSA photography changed with
Roosevelt’s re-election. Prior to 1937, photographers
had focused on the Depression’s negative social
ramifications. After 1937, the FSA’s focus became
more positive, emphasizing how the New Deal had
improved American life. Depicting Americans at
work and play, Shahn’s Southern photographs of
1937 contributed to this new philosophy and high-
lighted the strength of community in small-town
America. A year later, Shahn extended and broad-
ened this theme during a six-week stay in Ohio,where he focused his attention on social interaction,
not economic relations. He took many images of
small-town folk culture—road signs, posters, local
gatherings, fairs, and the summer harvest—and
returned to his interest in street photography. As
social documents, they are more journalistic than
his images from the South. Essentially affirmative,
they show the importance of human interaction and
the value of local, communal custom.
After Ohio, Shahn’s photographic career ended.
Although he continued to rely heavily on pho-
tography for his painting, basing many works on
his earlier images, his commitment to photography
was over. However, in 1959, Shahn tried to re-
invigorate his interest in photography, and he
took his camera on a visit to Asia, yet this venture
failed to revive his earlier enthusiasm: ‘‘I could not
get interested in it [...] I found it was gone. I still love
to look at photographs of people, but I couldn’t
make them myself any more’’ (Morse 1972).
Despite the short span of Shahn’s photographic
career, his influence was, and continues to be, signifi-
cant. In New York and Ohio, he clarified and exem-
plified the course of American street photography.
As an FSA photographer, he greatly affected the
concerns and direction of this government agency
by portraying the rural poor with sympathy and
compassion. To extend an observation made by
Kate Sampsell, Shahn’s photographs are moreThe
Family of ManthanYouHaveSeenTheirFaces.And
as Howard Greenfeld recently noted, Shahn’s ‘‘re-
nunciation of the camera represented a real loss to
the world of American photography’’ (Greenfeld
1998). Shahn died in New York on 14 March 1968,
and his photographic archive was acquired by Har-
vard University’s Fogg Art Museum in 1970.
RichardHaw
Seealso: Atget, Euge`ne; Cartier-Bresson, Henri;
Documentary Photography; Evans, Walker; Farm
Security Administration; Lange, Dorothea; Modern-
ism; Photography in the United States: the South;
Sheeler, Charles; Social Representation; Street
Photography; Stryker, RoyBiography
Born in Kovno, Lithuania on 12 September 1898. Immi-
grated to New York, 1906; began an apprenticeship in
lithography, 1913. Assisted Diego Rivera on the Rock-
efeller Center mural and begins to photograph New
York City, 1933; photographed the prison system in
New York State in preparation for the Ryker’s Island
Mural Project, 1934; joined the Special Skills Division of
the Resettlement Administration (later Farm Security
Adminstration), 1935; photographed the mining com-
munities of West Virginia and Kentucky, and the cottonSHAHN, BEN