Book Review: A South Carolina Album, 1936-1948

Twelve remarkable years

Constance Schulz's book goes a bit further than the usual State photo histories of the Depression and war years. Other titles mostly just use the FSA and OWI photos but with this book the coverage goes up to 1948. The common thread for the twelve years is that all the photos were taken under the direction of Roy Stryker. He was in charge of the FSA/OWI photo division until 1943 when he joined the Standard Oil (New Jersey) Photography Project (he left in 1950 to organize the Pittsburgh Photo Library).

The 113 photos in the book are a fine selection of life in the State. Starting with rural hardships which merges into the full employment of the war years and final twenty-three photos from 1947 and '48 showing growing prosperity. All the photos have something to say thanks to the direction and inspiration Stryker gave his photographers. Constance Schulz writes an interesting intro and biographies of the eight photographers. The back pages have a short bibliography.

I was though slightly disappointed with the look of the book (so four stars) because the photos have been printed with a 150 screen instead of 175 or 200 to bring out the best in these images. They also vary in size too much with different margins on each page. Still, this is most likely the only book to be published of South Carolina photos during these years.

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