Child of Fortuna Family, Hammond, Louisiana

Like his more famous counterparts Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, Ben Shahn was an artist and photographer who made images for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) from 1935 to 1938. Shahn convinced Roy Stryker, the head of the Information Division of the FSA, that distant visual records would not sufficiently capture the social issues that dislocated Americans faced. Shahn’s compassionate photographs are works of social criticism that emphasize the human element of their subjects as a source of emotional appeal. He captured his candid, informal images using a 35-mm camera with a right angle viewfinder—an L-shaped accessory that allows photographers to look down into the viewfinder rather than directly at their subjects. With this accessory, Shahn was able to photograph his subjects unguarded and unaware.