Oral history interview with Roy Emerson Stryker
odd: label: General
content: Originally recorded on 5 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav files. Duration is 8 hr.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Stryker, Roy Emerson, 1893-1975
label: Interviewer
content: Doud, Richard Keith
label: Names
content: Collier, John, Jr., 1913-1992
label: Names
content: Delano, Jack
label: Names
content: Evans, Walker, 1903-1975
label: Names
content: Lange, Dorothea
label: Names
content: Lee, Russell, 1903-1986
label: Names
content: Mydans, Carl
label: Names
content: Rosskam, Edwin, 1903-1985
label: Names
content: Rothstein, Arthur, 1915-1985
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Stryker, Roy Emerson, 1893-1975
label: Interviewer
content: Doud, Richard Keith
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Roy Emerson Stryker (1893-1975) was the director of the Farm Security Administration Historical Section of Washington, D.C. Under Stryker the Photographic project of the FSA documented the drought, poverty and despair of rural and urban America during the Depression.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 159 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1963-1965
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.stryke63
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of Roy Emerson Stryker conducted 1963-1965, by Richard Doud, for the Archives of American Art, at the artist's home, in Montrose, Colorado.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Stryker speaks of his youth; early career in ranching and social work; the origin of the photography project in the Farm Security Administration; bureaucratic problems; photography and journalism; photographers on the project; subjects' reaction to being photographed; public perception of the FSA project; Paul Vanderbilt's work with the project's photographs; ethics of the photographers and staff; interaction between the photographers and subjects; the influence of earlier documentary photographers, such as Matthew Brady and Lewis Hine; political and media problems with the project; use of the photographs as a force in social change; and other issues surrounding the FSA photography project. He recalls Jack Delano, John Vachon, Edwin Rosskam, Arthur Rothstein, Rexford Tugwell, John Collier, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Ben Shahn, and Marion Post Wolcott.