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Collection: Marjory Collins - FSA/OWI Jan 1942 - June 1943

The photographs in the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944. Photographer Marjory Collins was hired by the Office of War Information to photograph American life and support of the war effort. Across some 50 assignments, Ms. Collins captured iconic images of workers, families, and children all along the eastern part of the U.S. Her photos span January 1942 - June 1943 In 1944 Collins worked freelance for a construction company in Alaska before travelling to Africa and Europe on government and commercial assignments. Thereafter she worked mainly as an editor and a writer covering civil rights, the Vietnam War and women's movements. In the 1960s she edited American Journal of Public Health.[1] In the 1980s she moved to San Francisco where she obtained an M.A. in American Studies at Antioch College West. She died in 1985 at the age of 73.[1]

831 photos

Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Mural painting in a parking lot

Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Company dance given in Moose Hall so that the Hamilton Watch Company new employees might get acquainted. Jazz fans listening to the orchestra

Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Company dance given in Moose Hall by employees of the Hamilton Watch Company so that new employees might get acquainted. Zoot suits and jitterbugs

Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Everyone was asked to dump his scrap in a vacant lot at the center of town. It was then bought by a junk man and salvaged

Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Company dance given in Moose Hall by employees of the Hamilton Watch Company so that new employees could get acquainted. Zoot suits and jitterbugs

Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Central market

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Main street on Armistice Day

Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Parking lot. Mural painting at left shows a tramp fishing by a stream

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Private first class Fred D. Long, home on leave from Fort Bliss, Texas, goes shopping with his father, Albert K. Long, who works in the animal trap company's machine shop

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Farmers' market held weekly at the rear of Benny Lutz's butcher shop

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Farmers' market. Many of the farmers are Mennonites

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Volunteer firemen called out during an air raid drill

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Part of the Lititz fire department called out during an air raid drill

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Old Mennonite sweeping leaves

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Old Mennonite

Lititz, Pennsylvania. When all tires above five per car were called in, they were deposited with the station master and shipped to Harrisburg by train

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Mr. O.K. Bushong, express agent (left), supervising the loading of old tires to be shipped to Harrisburg

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Mr. O.K. Bushong, express agent. Two trains a day pass through Lititz on the Lancaster-Reading Railroad. He says that passenger trade has increased 100 percent since war

Lititz, Pennsylvania. "Frozen" brand new tractors displayed outside Diem's farm machinery store. No more farm machinery can be sold since November 1. They hope for some kind of rationing before spring

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Truckmen who deliver coal

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Truckman who delivers coal

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Emergency policemen outside their headquarters during an air raid drill

Lititz, Pennsylvania. Emergency policemen outside their headquarters during an air raid drill

Lititz, Pennsylvania. "Bosser" Kreider, day policeman, during an air raid drill