Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939-1943

This online exhibit coincides with current physical exhibit created by the Library of Congress and funded by the Durham Western Heritage Museum. The images capture rural America during the great depression, leading up to the Second World War.

Collection Principles
Bound for Glory is the first major exhibition of color photographs taken by the Farm Security Administration photographers. The photographers of the FSA were employed by the U.S. government to record the depression and increase citizen’s support for relief efforts. They paint a portrait of devastation and recovery. The images also illustrate the early techniques of color film and bring to life an era often seen only in black in white. All 70 photos in the physical exhibit are in its online companion. The Exhibition Overview page also contains a link to the entire FSA/OWI Collection, which contains over 170,000 photographs.

Object
The objects of the exhibition are merely laid out on a single page of thumbnails, with the metadata information below. They are not searchable by title, year, or any other information. When a specific object is selected the viewer is taken to a new page simply displaying a larger JPEG of the image. Only a four of the JPEGs could be further enlarged. The viewer cannot click through the exhibit objects in succession but must return to the page of thumbnails between viewing each larger image, making it more of a file folder than an exhibition.

Metadata
The metadata for the images is thorough and readily available. Under each image on the actual exhibition page the photographer, title, date, and location where taken, type of image, Library of Congress call numbers and department are given. This information is also available on another page titled “Checklist of Objects”. Also present are links to the catalog of the LC department housing each image. The Exhibition Overview also gives a history of the collection.

Intended Audience
The exhibition encourages the audience to change the way it looks at “our” past, seeming to target Americans. However, the exhibition curators still target a broad audience. The subjects of the photographs cross many generational and racial barriers, reaching out to viewers who lived through the depression and those just now learning about it.

- Lauren A. Blog 1