Housed at the Library of Congress, the archives of the Farm Security Administration constitute an essential visual record of American life from the late 1920s through the onset of the Second World War. The FSA archive includes the work of dozens of photographers, from acknowledged giants like Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, and Dorothea Lange to Marion Post Wolcott and Russell Lee, whose names and work may be less familiar. This book collects work from nine of these trips ? Evans in Louisana and Alabama, Shahn in West Virginia, Lange in California, and others ? uniting them with Stryker's shooting scripts, letters, and other relevant archival documents. Reproduced in duotone, the 175 photographs in The Likes of Us ? all printed from the original negatives at the Library of Congress ? off er a rare opportunity not only to see a choice selection of famous and little-known images but also to understand the working of one of the government's most original and creative pre-war initiatives.
