Searching for the Seventies: The DOCUMERICA Photography Project

Revisit the 1970s through 100 remarkable colour photographs taken for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project. These images chosen, from 22,000 files in the National Archives of the United States, highlight the fashions, trends, problems, and achievements of the decade. In addition to photographs of environmental blight and activism, DOCUMERICA images capture issues such as eco-politics, urban revitalisation, suburbanisation, and deindustrialisation. They depict trends such as the growing appreciation of cultural diversity, the changing roles of women, and post-1960s youth culture. Drawing inspiration from the depression-era Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography project, DOCUMERICA photographers created a portrait of America in the early to mid-1970s featuring small Midwestern towns, barrios in the Southwest, and coal mining communities in Appalachia. Their assignments were as varied as African American life in Chicago, urban renewal in Kansas City, commuters in Washington, DC, and migrant farm workers in Colorado. See more