Historian Presents Lecture On Pictures Of Faith

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Dr. Colleen McDannell, Sterling M. McMurrin Professor of Religious Studies and Professor of History at the University of Utah, will present a lecture, "Picturing Faith: Religion in the FSA Photographs," on the University of Arkansas campus on Thursday, March 28, at 7:00 p.m. in Kimpel Hall, Room 102. The talk is open to the public and is free of charge. A reception will follow.

In 1935 in order to generate support for New Deal reforms, the Historical Division of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) began making a photographic survey of economic struggle and social dislocation in Depression era America. In the interest of producing a composite picture of American society, the director of the project sent out "scripts" to his photographers and asked them to include pictures of America’s religious life.

These "sociologists with cameras" entered the homes and churches of the poor as well as the middle class. They photographed people in prayer, domestic shrines, dinner graces, parishioners going into their churches, revival meetings, and even the gospel trucks of itinerant preachers.

Dr. McDannell identifies 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 defines both who could be religious and what was religious. At times, FSA photographers pictured religion as the intense, inner life of the 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, FSA photographers were asked 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 the FSA 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.

The FSA photographs challenge viewers to reflect on the ways that belief and ritual is visually represented, and it presents a glimpse of American religions during a tumultuous time of our nation’s history.