Documerica

File:FLOWERS AND ROCK FORMATIONS AT THE ROY FLY RANCH IN SARPY BASIN - NARA - 549228.jpg

File:MIDDLETOWN DUMP MEETS THE SALT MARSH - NARA - 547520.jpg

With support from the first EPA administrator, William Ruckelshaus, project director Gifford D. Hampshire contracted well-known photographers to work for the EPA on the project.{{cite news|last1=Sisson|first1=Patrick|title=Documerica, a photo time capsule of the '70s, should be resurrected |url=https://www.curbed.com/2017/4/27/15452110/photography-documentary-epa-documerica|accessdate=April 5, 2018|work=Curbed|date=April 27, 2017}} Estimates of the number involved range between 70 and 120,{{cite news|last1=Holley|first1=Joe|title=Journalist Gifford D. Hampshire, 80|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2004/09/02/journalist-gifford-d-hampshire-80/fe2c7e3e-8551-4655-88a6-3c1c52fb9e9f/|accessdate=April 5, 2018|work=The Washington Post|date=September 2, 2004}} including Erik Calonius, Dennis Cowals, Gene Daniels, Ken Hayman, Anne LaBastille, Danny Lyon, Boyd Norton, Yoichi Okamoto, Charles O'Rear, Marc St. Gil, Flip Schulke, Tomas Sennett, Bill Strode, Suzanne Szasz, Arthur Tress and John H. White. They were organized geographically, with each photographer working in a particular area in which they were already active. For example, Michael Philip Manheim worked in Boston;

Jack Corn focused on West Virginia and Tennessee; Bill Gillette documented miners in Colorado;{{cite journal|last1=Simmons|first1=C. Jerry|title=DOCUMERICA: Snapshots of Crisis and Cure in the 1970s |journal=Prologue Magazine|date=Spring 2009|volume=41|issue=1 |url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2009/spring/documerica.html|accessdate=April 5, 2018}} and Marc St. Gil focused primarily on Leakey, Houston and San Antonio, Texas.{{cite web|title=Marc St. Gil's Finest Shots From The Texas DOCUMERICA Series|url=http://austinist.com/2012/10/10/marc_st_gils_finest_shots_from_his.php#photo-1|website=Austinist|date=October 10, 2012}}

Subjects photographed include urban cityscapes, small towns, rural areas, beaches and mountains. They show people going about their everyday lives as well as working in farms; waterfronts; mining and logging, industry and heavy industry. Images document junk yards, highways, Amtrak trains, air and water pollution; and environmental protection and pollution control measures.{{cite web|title=Sorry No Gas: Photos from Documerica, 1972 – 1975 |url=https://wearethemutants.com/2018/03/27/sorry-no-gas-photos-from-documerica-1972-1975/|website=We are the mutants|date=March 27, 2018}} The earliest assignments were closely aligned to the EPA's proposed areas of concern: air and water pollution, management of solid waste, radiation and pesticides, and noise abatement.{{rp|153}} However, photographers had considerable creative freedom about what they shot.As has been discussed by Gisela Parak, photographers working with Documerica were involved in the creation of a new pictorial language to articulate environmental issues.{{cite book|last1=Parak|first1=Gisela|title=Photographs of Environmental Phenomena: Scientific Images in the Wake of Environmental Awareness, USA 1860s-1970s|date=January 26, 2016|publisher=Transcript-Verlag|location=Germany|isbn=978-3837630855|pages=146-|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y8KyCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA146|accessdate=April 5, 2018}}{{rp|155}} Among the areas depicted are national parks and forests, including environmentally sensitive areas that were under development or considered for government protection, such as the planned route of the Alaska Pipeline, Hawaii and Washington, D.C. Photographers used differing approaches: Boyd Norton's photographs often emphasize the natural beauty of an area,{{rp|156}} while Alexander Hope's photographs of the Middletown, Rhode Island dump and salt marsh reveal complex inter-relationships of man and nature.{{rp|165–167}}

File:TexasPotGals1973StGil.jpg, Texas, 1973, Marc St. Gil]]

File:THE STATE OF OREGON WAS THE FIRST TO GO TO A SYSTEM OF ODD AND EVEN NUMBERS DURING THE GASOLINE CRISIS IN THE FALL... - NARA - 555489.jpg, Portland, OR, 1973, David Falconer]]

Photographers working for the Documerica project received $150 a day ({{Inflation|index=US|value=150|start_year=1972|r=0|fmt=eq}}{{Inflation/fn|index=US}}), along with film and expenses. More than 80,000 photographs were submitted to Gifford D. Hampshire.{{cite news|last1=Walsh|first1=Dylan|title=A Photographic Blast From the Past|url=https://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/a-photographic-blast-from-the-past/|accessdate=April 5, 2018|work=The New York Times|date=January 4, 2012}} A selection were kept to become part of the collection, while copies and the unselected images were returned to the photographers. Because the images were part of a federal government project, photographers were required to waive their copyright, placing the images in the public domain.{{cite web|last1=Archibald|first1=Roger|title=Long dormant EPA photojournalism project being rediscovered and revived|url=https://www.sej.org/publications/sejournal/documerica-lost-and-found|website=Society of Environmental Journalists|date=January 15, 2012}}

Like the photographers of the Federal photographic project of the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression,{{cite thesis |last1=Shubinski |first1=Barbara Lynn |title=From FSA to EPA: Project Documerica, the Dustbowl Legacy, and the Quest to Photograph 1970s America |date=2009 |degree=PhD |publisher=University of Iowa |url=https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1619&context=etd |doi=10.17077/etd.ernl7umv |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100722234520/http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1619&context=etd |archive-date=July 22, 2010 |url-status=dead|url-access=subscription }} some of the Documerica photographers interpreted their mission rather broadly, and sometimes artistically. Many of the photographs preserve a distinct visual record of time and place.{{cite web|last1=Fulleylove|first1=Rebecca|title=Martin Joubert celebrates archive images of 1970s America in this series of mags|url=https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/martin-joubert-documerica-archive-publication-photography-100717|website=It's Nice That|accessdate=July 10, 2017}}

Perhaps a quarter of the images were publicly shown during the 1970s. A group of 155 photographs was shown in an exhibition Documerica 1 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. for six weeks in the summer of 1972. A number of small traveling exhibits were sent to cities such as New Orleans, Cincinnati, Dallas, and Philadelphia, and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) created the exhibit Our Only World for display at the EPA's Visitors Center and as a traveling exhibit.

Digital scans of over 15,000 of the original 35 mm color slides and black-and-white negatives and prints are available through the National Archives and Records Administration's Archival Research Catalog.In "Scope & Contents" page for series DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency's Program to Photographically Document Subjects of Environmental Concern, compiled 1972 - 1977, National Archives Identifier 542493 / Local Identifier 412-DA; Series from Record Group 412: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency, 1944 - 2000. Record of holdings available from the [https://research.archives.gov/description/542493 National Archives Catalog of the National Archives and Records Administration] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140802193144/http://research.archives.gov/description/542493 |date=August 2, 2014 }} under the National Archives Identifier 542493. Accessed February 18, 2009.{{cite news|last1=Loria|first1=Kevin|title=Vintage photos taken by the EPA reveal what America looked like before pollution was regulated|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-america-before-epa-documerica-2017-10|accessdate=April 5, 2018|work=Business Insider|date=October 9, 2017}}

The quality of the images varies. Older copies made from the original color transparency films tend to be inferior to the quality of the originals. In 2013, the National Archives in Washington, D.C., displayed a curated exhibition, "Searching for the Seventies: The Documerica Photography Project". Curator Bruce Bustard selected a set of images from the Documerica collection and arranged to reprint them from the original slides. The quality of the resulting color images was much higher than that of older color reprints, which had degraded. One hundred reprinted images from the Documerica project were reprinted in the exhibition book Searching for the Seventies: The Documerica Photography Project (2013), edited by Bruce I. Bustard.{{cite book|last1=Bustard|first1=Bruce I.|title=Searching for the seventies : the DOCUMERICA photography project|date=2013|publisher=D Giles Limited|location=London|isbn=978-1907804151}}{{cite web|title=Searching for the Seventies U.S. National Archives|url=https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/AQfyFcoI|website=Google Arts and Culture|date=2015|accessdate=April 6, 2018}}

{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage= | video1 = [http://www.bam.org/music/2013/documerica “Documerica”], ETHEL, trailer from 2013 Next Wave Festival }}

In 2013 the string quartet Ethel created a multimedia show called Ethel's Documerica which incorporated images from the DOCUMERICA archives.{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/arts/music/documerica-features-the-new-music-quartet-ethel.html|title=New Music Bonds With Vintage Images|work=The New York Times|first=Steve |last= Smith|date=October 4, 2013}} The show premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and went on a national tour managed by Baylin Artists Management.{{cite web|url=https://baylinartists.com/artist-ethel-documerica/|title=Baylin Artists Management - Baylin Artists Management|publisher=}}

File:VACATIONERS ON MOTORCYCLES - NARA - 544844.jpg|Bikers in Colorado, 1972, Boyd Norton

File:FERTILIZING IN THE IMPERIAL VALLEY. (FROM THE DOCUMERICA-1 EXHIBITION. FOR OTHER IMAGES IN THIS ASSIGNMENT, SEE FICHE... - NARA - 553048.jpg|Fertilizing the Imperial Valley, CA, 1972, Charles O'Rear

File:ONE OF A FEW REMAINING FARM FIELDS NEAR THE OCEAN IN FAST GROWING ORANGE COUNTY. SOME 4 PERCENT OF THE STATE... - NARA - 557476.jpg|Suburbanization, Orange County, CA, 1975, Charles O'Rear

File:APARTMENT TERRACE GARDEN OF A FAMILY AT 170 WEST END AVENUE IN NEW YORK CITY - NARA - 555523.jpg|Nature in New York City, 1974, Suzanne Szasz

File:CHILDREN AT REIS PARK, A PUBLIC BEACH IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK CITY. THE INNER CITY IS AN ABSOLUTE CONTRADICTION TO THE... - NARA - 555892.jpg|Children at a Brooklyn beach, 1974, Danny Lyon

File:ONCE ONE OF CHICAGO'S BUSY THOROUGHFARES, 63RD STREET HAS CHANGED WITH THE CHARACTER OF THE CITY. MANY FIRES HAVE... - NARA - 556202.jpg|63rd Street, Chicago, 1973, John H. White

File:DEAD DUCK PULLED FROM A FIVE ACRE POND FILLED WITH ACID WATER, OIL AND ACID CLAY SLUDGE. UNWARY ANIMALS WHICH CAME TO... - NARA - 555854.jpg|Duck killed by polluted pond, Utah, 1974, Bruce McAllister

File:CLARK AVENUE BRIDGE IS RENDERED ALMOST INVISIBLE BY HEAVY INDUSTRIAL SMOKE - NARA - 550173.jpg|Air pollution, Cleveland, OH, 1973, Frank John Aleksandrowicz

File:THE REV. JESSE JACKSON SPEAKS ON A RADIO BROADCAST FROM THE HEADQUARTERS OF OPERATION PUSH, AT ITS ANNUAL CONVENTION.... - NARA - 556252.jpg|Jesse Jackson, Chicago, 1973, John H. White

File:VIEW WEST TO PORT VALDEZ, THE GLACIAL FIORD THAT WILL BE THE TRANS-ALASKA PIPELINE TERMINUS, WITH ROBE LAKE IN THE... - NARA - 555683.jpg|Future terminus of Trans-Alaska Pipeline, 1974, Dennis Cowals

File:MINER IN THE BLACK LUNG LABORATORY AT THE APPALACHIAN REGIONAL HOSPITAL IN BECKLEY, WEST VIRGINIA, UNDERGOING TESTS... - NARA - 556570.jpg|Testing in the black lung laboratory, West Virginia, 1974, Jack Corn

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category|DOCUMERICA photographers}}

• [https://www.archives.gov/research/environment/documerica-topics Documerica Project] at the National Archives and Records Administration
• [https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/collections/72157620729903309/ Documerica] at Flickr
• {{cite web|title=Searching for the Seventies U.S. National Archives|url=https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/AQfyFcoI|website=Google Arts and Culture|date=2015}}

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Category:Photography in the United States

Category:Environmental photography

Category:Environment of the United States

Category:United States Environmental Protection Agency

Category:1970s in the United States