page_title: Documerica
section_title: Details
hierarchical_section_title: Documerica / Details
context_page_description: Documerica was a program sponsored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to "photographically document subjects of environmental concern" in the United States from about 1972 to 1977. The collection, now at the National Archives, contains over 22,000 photographs, more than 15,000 of which are available online. The title is a portmanteau of "documentary" and "America".
context_section_description: Photographers working for the Documerica project received $150 a day along with film and expenses. More than 80,000 photographs were submitted to Gifford D. Hampshire.  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.
  Like the photographers of the Federal photographic project of the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression, 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.
caption: Gas shortage due to oil crisis, Portland, OR, 1973, David Falconer
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