Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which argued for
the humanity of sharecroppers and tenant farmers
and rejected the use of their images for aesthetic
purposes. Although there is disagreement as to
how effective the FSA was at aiding the broader
economic relief efforts of the Roosevelt administra-
tion, there is no doubt that it quickly became a
program through which America embraced its art
and artists. The FSA’s legacy, which can be seen at
both the Library of Congress or at the websitehttp://
memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html,helpedto
emblaze the decade of the 1930s onto the Amer-
ican national memory that still reverberates. Nu-
merous exhibitions have been mounted featuring
the FSA photographers in anthologies and mo-
nographic presentations, including the influential
Museum of Modern Art exhibition organized by
Edward Steichen,The Bitter Years 1935–1941: Rural
America as Seen by the Photographers of the Farm
Security Administration.
ANDYCRANKSeealso:Delano, Jack; Documentary Photography;
Evans, Walker; History of Photography: Interwar
Years; Lange, Dorothea; Lee, Russell; Rothstein,
Arthur; Shahn, Ben; Social Representation; Stryker,
Roy; Works Progress AdministrationFurther Reading
Carlebach, Michael and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr.Farm
Security Administration Photographs of Florida. Gaines-
ville: University Press of Florida, 1993.
Daniel, Pete, et al.Official Images: New Deal Photography.
Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987.
Fleischhauer, Carl, and Beverly Brannan, eds.Documenting
America: 1935–1943. Berkeley, CA: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1988.
Hurley, F. Jack.Portrait of a Decade: Roy Stryker and the
Development of Documentary Photography in the Thir-
ties. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1972.
Just Before the War: Urban America from 1935 to 1941 as
seen by Photographers of the Farm Security Administra-
tion. New York: October House, 1968.
O’Neal, Hank.A Vision Shared: a Classic Portrait of Amer-
ica and Its People, 1935–1943. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1976.
Steichen, Edward, ed.The Bitter Years 1935–1941: Rural
America as Seen by the Photographers of the Farm Secur-
ity Administration. New York: The Museum of Modern
Art, 1962.
The Years of Bitterness and Pride: Farm Security Adminis-
tration Photographs, 1935–1943. New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1975.FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY
Fashion photography occupies a unique position in
the world of photography. It commands the atten-
tion of almost everyone. Fashion photography
answers the need for what the current image of fe-
mininity is in our society. It appears to be easy to
do; above all, ever so glamorous, yet fashion photo-
graphy is amongst the most difficult to practice. As
a result, fashion photographers rank at the top of
the profession in terms of respect, name recogni-
tion, and income. Fashion photography historically
has been considered within a nexus of commercial
practice including so-called beauty photography
and glamour photography. These distinctions are
important in the overall field: beauty photography
is a commercial pursuit intended to sell cosmetics,
hairstyles, physical fitness products, and increas-
ingly, health and food products. Glamour photo-
graphy historically has implied creating an overall
effect accentuating the desirability of the sitter and
has been most associated with the photographing of
movie stars and other celebrities whose physical
appearance is their stock-in-trade.
The photography of fashion began shortly after
the invention of the medium in 1839. While it was
difficult at first to make portraits due to the long
exposures required, gradually film speeds increas-
ed and the making of portraits became possible. In
many ways the first portraits can be thought of asFARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION