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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

Buffalo, New York. Swingshift workers on the sidelines at the weekly swingshift dance held at the Main-Utica ballroom

Baltimore, Maryland. Third shift defense workers being picked up by a car pool around midnight

Baltimore, Maryland. Third shift workers waiting on a street corner to be picked up by car pools around midnight

Buffalo, New York. Procession and high mass at the Corpus Christi church in the Polish community

Buffalo, New York. Procession and high mass on Easter at the Corpus Christi church in the Polish community

Buffalo, New York. Procession and high mass on Easter at the Corpus Christi church in the Polish community

Buffalo, New York. Flower girls strewing rose petals in the procession at Easter high mass at the Corpus Christi Church in the Polish community

Buffalo, New York. Advertisement of the United States Employment Service, effective in the recruitment of women for work in war industry

Buffalo, New York. Women workers washing up for lunch in a round sink in their newly-installed washroom at Ross Heater, makers of condensers for the Navy

Baltimore, Maryland. Third shift workers waiting on street corner to be picked up by shared cars around midnight

Buffalo, New York. The wedding of Cecelia Wrazen and Bronislaus Nowak, who work at Ross Heater, makers of condensers for the Navy. They are of Polish descent. He is temporarily deferred from the Army because of his essential work

Buffalo, New York. People waiting to be interviewed at the employment agency of the Bell Aircraft plant

Buffalo, New York. Beverly Ann Grimm, eleven, doing the family shopping. She is making purchases from a list left that morning by her mother who is a crane operator at Pratt and Letchworth

Buffalo, New York. The Grimm children doing the housework. Their mother, a twenty-six year old widow, is a crane operator at Pratt and Letchworth

Stockton (vicinity), California. Mexican agricultural laborer topping sugar beets

Stockton (vicinity), California. Mexican agricultural laborer topping sugar beets

Stockton (vicinity), California. Mexican agricultural laborer topping sugar beets

Stockton (vicinity), California. Mexican agricultural laborers arriving by train to help in the harvesting of beets

Stockton (vicinity), California. Mexican agricultural laborers throwing sugar beets into a truck

Stockton (vicinity), California. Mexican agricultural laborers topping sugar beets

Stockton (vicinity), California. Mexican agricultural laborers topping sugar beets

Stockton (vicinity), California. Mexican agricultural laborers arriving by train to help in the harvesting of beets

Stockton (vicinity), California. Mexican agricultural laborers arriving by train to help in the harvesting of beets

Stockton (vicinity), California. Mexican agricultural laborers arriving by train to help in the harvesting of beets