Customer Reviews

Back Home Again: Indiana in the Farm Security Administration Photographs, 1935-1943

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"BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA" became a popular hit tune in 1974 and the title of a book was borrowed from that song. Robert Reid was editor of "Back Home Again" compiling Public Security Administration photographs, primarily from the mid-thirties and published by Indiana University Press in 1987.

Dorothea Lange is one of a roster of photographers employed for the project, and she went on to become famous for her work. In this book her pictures are mainly of the harvesting of oats. This series is of particular value now that farming practices are mechanized and on a scale unimagined at that time.

The New Deal project was to focus on "the ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished" and these are shown starkly in pictures of family resettlement, of farm sales & moving days. On p. 12 is a poignant portrait of a young wife posed in front of a wall papered with newspapers; a series showing the Great Flood of 1937 on pages 36 - 46 remind the reader sadly of the "digging out" from Gulf Coast hurricanes in 2005. Some photographs are valuable from an historic viewpoint: a "vintage" school bus; a truck driver in a diner where most menu items are 5 cents, or ten; lining up to use the "Free Toilet" in a Greyhound bus station; also, a series taken during wartime, of a U.S. Army Chaplain's School at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis.

Some are portraits of excellent design and clarity: hanging laundry (p.34), boarding a Greyhound bus (p.124), two men sleeping with luggage in a waiting room (p.127). The last two are the work of Esther Bubley, another talented woman perhaps new to a profession that opened up because of the Great Depression.

Mid-Westerners are fond of 'saving history' and mcHAIKU hopes that Hoosiers will continue the tradition honored in this book. Offered are many reminders of people who lived & worked hard in the hope that their children would experience 'better' lives.

Yet another collection of Farm Security Administration photographs devoted to a State, this time Indiana. I already have similar books of FSA photos, titled `Chicago and Downstate', `A Southern Illinois Album', `A Kentucky Album', `Picturing Minnesota' and `Far from Main Street', (about New Mexico) but I don't think this latest book is as good as these. The ten chapters adequately cover the years from 1935 to 1943 with an emphasis on agriculture and I think these are the weakest photos. The chapter called People and Places with sixteen photos of small town Indiana life was best, exterior shots of stores with their wares and signage (signs, ads and anything typographic was a big thing with FSA photographers) interior shots, main streets, people talking and relaxing or eating in a diner.

Each chapter has a short introduction and all the pictures are photographer credited, captioned, dated and usefully they have the Library of Congress negative number, a comprehensive book list is in the back of the book. I found the photos a little grey because they are printed in a dot screen (133) that does not do justice to the quality of the images and quite a few could be better trimmed. Despite this `Back Home Again' is worth having especially if you live in Indiana and want a visual record of the day just before yesterday.

This book is an excellent resource for costumers interested in real life garb of small towners and farmers of the 30's. It shows nice details of shoes, hats, aprons, collar styles, fabric patterns, etc. There are a few interiors and exteriers but almost every photo (like soylant green) is of people.