Bound For Glory, America in Colour 1939-1943

We are familiar with Walker Evans' iconic black and white photographs of poverty-stricken farmers during the Depression. These photographs were intended to educate the USA about the problem, in support of Roosevelt's New Deal. From 1939 photographs were commissioned to take patriotic photographs in colour, using newly-developed Kodachrome film, to show that the New Deal was starting to have an effect. Overtaken by the events of the Second World War, these photographs were lost and only recently rediscovered in the Library of Congress. They offer a shocking new perspective on American poverty sixty years ago.

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