The Frame Behind the Hole
In the 1930s Roy Stryker's office punched holes through the government photographs it rejected. Years later, Ben Shahn went looking for one of those rejects because he needed it, and found it destroyed.
Chapters (7)
- 0:01Marked Tree
- 2:29The Man With the Punch
- 4:54Sponsor
- 6:01Killed Doesn't Mean Punched
- 11:21The Photographers Fought Back
- 13:37What the Hole Hit
- 17:01Keep the Alternates
About this episode
In the 1930s the Farm Security Administration sent photographers across America. Back in Washington, Roy Stryker's office decided which frames went into the file and "killed" the rest. Some of the killed frames got a hole punched straight through the negative. Today those wounded negatives hang in galleries as the censored pictures of the Depression. This episode puts the legend next to the record: who held the punch, what "killed" actually meant, and why the punching stopped in 1939. It starts with the day Ben Shahn went looking for a photograph of a storefront in Marked Tree, Arkansas, with the prices marked in Bon Ami, and found the negative destroyed.
There is no single famous keeper this time. This one is about the rejects. Most were near-duplicates, and every now and then one held the very thing the photographer needed years later. It's for anyone who has spent a long night deciding which frames live, and it ends with one idea to take into your next cull: choose the keeper, but don't destroy the alternates.
Hosted by Mae and Gus, performed by synthetic voices. Supported by ShotBreak.
Sources
- theatlantic.com/photo/2017/02/holes-punched-through-history/518115/
- loc.gov/collections/fsa-owi-black-and-white-negatives/about-this-collection
- docslib.org/doc/3932144/selecting-photographs-for-the-fsa-owi-print-file-a-photo-assignmen
- theburiedsouth.com/episodes/070-killed-negatives/
- journal.code4lib.org/articles/12542
- archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/download/13228/14547/15772
- atlasobscura.com/articles/great-depression-photos
- aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-ben-shahn-12760
- loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/footnotes.html
- aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-edwin-and-louise-rosskam-13112
- brewminate.com/the-kept-and-the-killed-edited-photographic-documentation-of-the-great-depr
- theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/may/06/censored-images-of-1930s-america-to-go-on-show-in
- whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/killed-negatives-unseen-images-1930s-america/
- williamejones.com/portfolio/killed
- slate.com/culture/2016/05/bill-mcdowell-showcases-depression-era-farm-security-administrat
- switchyardmag.com/issue-1/thekeptandthekilled
