Exhibition Themes

The exhibition is structured around four themes. The first theme, "Religion and Photography," illustrates the various techniques that photographers use to express the religious spirit. A set of cultural conventions define both who could be religious and what was religious. At times, FSA photographers pictured religion as the intense, inner life of an individual. At other times they saw religion as a community activity where the individual became lost in the group.

The second theme, "Poverty and Religion," documents the religious lives of the poor. If the main purpose of the FSA photographs was to document America's economic troubles, where did religion fit into this agenda? Photographers like Dorothea Lange, presented rural life in decay but religious images could work against representing the poor as without hope. While the New Dealers felt that faith had little role in solving America's economic problems, the FSA photographs show that religion was a vital part of the lives of the poor.

By the end of the 1930s, the goals of the FSA began to shift away from documenting the Depression and New Deal reforms. The third theme, "Celebrating America's Communal Spirit," demonstrates how photography was used to support America's entry into World War Two. In order to present democracy as the alternative to fascism, Roy Stryker asked his photographers to provide evidence of a harmonious, creative, and multiethnic America. Religious behavior was presented as the social glue that held together American communities. FSA photographers ignored religious strife and showed faith as the common ground shared by all Americans.

The FSA photographers also wanted to take "beautiful" pictures. The fourth theme, "Faith without People" shows how modernist canons of style influenced how the FSA photographers represented religion. To make artistic pictures, photographers waited for congregations to move away from their churches. The true and authentic "spirit" of religion was embodied in spaces and structures rather than in pious behavior. While Roy Stryker stressed the sociological nature of the photographic project, some of the most powerful images of faith are those of churches and synagogues emptied of the faithful.