See the Oklahoma Historical Society exhibit Photographing the Great Plains: Farm Security Administration, 1935–1945 at the Thomas K. McKeon Center for Creativity at TCC Metro Campus through December 8. The exhibition is part of the Route 66 Centennial Celebration festivities in Tulsa on November 11!

The Farm Security Administration (FSA) began in 1937 as the successor to the Resettlement Administration (RA), which was formed in 1935 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal program. Roy Stryker was hired in 1935 to head the Historical Section, also known as the Information Division. He established a documentary project to provide photographs to public relations outlets, including newspapers and magazines.

During the run of the project, from the early days of the RA (1935–36) to the FSA (1937–42) and later as the Office of War Information (1942–45), approximately 175,000 black-and-white negatives and 1,600 color transparencies were produced. These images are now housed at the Library of Congress and are digitized and available to the public.

The photographs in this exhibit are a sample of images by six photographers who visited Oklahoma or photographed displaced Oklahomans looking for work. The photographers are Jack Delano, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, John Vachon, and Marion Post Wolcott.

Dorothea Lange sits on the roof of a car taking a photograph.