History by Carl Mydans
 
RealAudio: Carl talks about the
value of words in photojournalism.
 
 Transient cotton choppers in
Crittenden County, Arkansas in
1936, on the road to find a better-
paying plantation. "Damned if
we'll work for what they pay folks
hereabouts," they told me. (FSA)
 
 
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At the height of the Great Depression, Carl Mydans, who had started his career as a newspaper reporter in New York was one of a handful of photographers to go to work for the Farm Security Administration. They were a new breed of photographer, to be called "photojournalists." Their job was to travel the length and breadth of the United States documenting the plight of farm families. 

A decade long fight with the devastating winds of what became known as the Great Dust Bowl, out west, was the subject of many of these photojournalists. As their farms failed, thousands of families started to migrate across the country, looking for a new life. 

 
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