Collections

The Great Depression lasted from the 1920s and through part of the 1940s. During this time, millions of Americans became unemployed, were evicted from their homes, and relied on what little assistance the United States government could provide. It was not until Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal that things began to look up. The New Deal introduced many agencies, each with a job to help bolster the economy and aid the American people. Consisting of 450 photo slides, the images in the collection were chosen from the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information Collections in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Photographed between 1935 and 1943, the original educational slide set was produced in 1979. Photographers include Arthur Rothstein, Dorothea Langue, Roy Stryker, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Theodor Jung, John Vachon, Carl Mydans, Russell Lee, Marion Post Wolcott, Jack Delano, and many more. The images encompass the entirety of the continental United States with five photographs taken in Florida. Work camps, homeless populations, ghost towns, Japanese Internment Camps, and agricultural communities are only some of the subjects that are the focus of the collection.

The Charles A. Ray Photojournalism Collection offers scholars a glimpse into the work of Charles A. Ray. Charles Ray stepped behind the camera in 1954, at the age of 23. Ray's camera captured a nation in flux. Through his lens, television viewers experienced the drama of presidential campaigns, the passion of the civil rights movement, and the adventure and tragedy of NASA's race for space. Charles Ray documented our nation's growing pains, including the bloody clashes between police and journalists covering the civil rights protests of the 1960s, and the tragic end of Camelot. Charles Ray graciously donated his collection to Florida Gulf Coast University Library in 2002. The Charles A. Ray Photojournalism Collection includes photographs, negatives, daybooks, audiotapes, videotapes, periodicals, newspapers, a reel-to-reel projector, 16mm film, and other professional mementos. The collection is organized by two series. The first series highlights his personal life, which consists of documents, images, and ephermera. The second series provides documents and images from Ray's professional career.