From the Camera to the Web: DOCUMERICAs 30Year Journey

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• From the Camera to the Web DOCUMERICAs 30-Year
  Journey
• Jerry Simmons, Archives Specialist
• National Archives and Records Administration
• College Park, Maryland

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Oil slick on New York Harbor at Liberty Island,
May 1973, by Chester Higgins
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New York City subway graffiti (Erik Calonius)
Signs advertising clean air to breath
in Colorado, May 1972, by Bill Gillette
Land for sale on Marathon Key, Florida, by Flip
Schulke
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DOCUMERICA captured the nationwide crisis,
East Boston
Jamaica Bay
Gulf Coast beach
Johns Island, South Carolina
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the controversy,
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the upbeat and positive,
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and sometimes, the downright creepy.
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Gifford D. Hampshire, Father of DOCUMERICA
Gifford D. Hampshire (far right) with Farm
Security Administration Veteran photographers
Arthur Rothstein (left) and Roy Stryker (center),
ca. 1974 Courtesy of the Gifford D. Hampshire
Family, Fairfax, Va.
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Hampshires guidelines for DOCUMERICA
photographers
your first principal guideline is to establish
a 1972 baseline of the environmental problems and
accomplishments in the geographical area assigned
to you.
Sailing on Chesapeake Bay, July 1973, by Mike Lien
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Hampshires guidelines for DOCUMERICA
photographers
Your secondary guideline is to look for pictures
wherever you are, for whatever purpose. Where you
see people, there's an environmental element to
which they are connected. The great DOCUMERICA
pictures will show the connection and what it
means.
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48 states, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico
House decoration in Key West, Florida by Flip
Schulke
Mountains of Western Maine by Charles Steinhacker
Pineapple plantation worker Henry Aki near Lanai
City, Hawaii by Charles ORear
View of Mount Drum, Alaska, near the point of the
proposed Oil pipeline crossing, by Dennis Cowals
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Well known U.S. photographers contribute
David Hiser
Arthur Tress
Charles ORear
Danny Lyon
Bill Gillette
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DOCUMERICA on exhibit and on the road Numerous
local viewings of early images introduce the
American public to the EPAs documentary project.
Gifford Hampshire (left), Bill Ruckelshaus, first
EPA administrator (center) and Tom Hart, EPA
staffer (right) at the EPA offices, Oct. 1974
DOCUMERICA exhibit, ca. 1973 Pictured are (L-R)
S. Dillon Ripley, Russell Train, Ann Dore and
Gifford Hampshire
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Images of Americas environmental and social
crisis in vivid color
Pollution in the air and water, deforestation,
strip mining, and urban sprawl go unchecked
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Images of hope for the future civic concern,
government action and personal innovation give us
hope for a brighter future.
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DOCUMERICA on exhibit and on the road
Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) hosts
the first formal exhibition called Our Only
World, August-September 1972. Featured
photographs included
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DOCUMERICA phases out, 1977-1979

• EPA administrators lose interest and funding
  evaporates

Love America, Stop Strip Mining, Oct. 1973, by
Erik Calonius
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Center for Creative Photography(University of
Arizona)

• Gifford Hampshire seeks a permanent home for the
  20,000 negatives, slides, prints and papers as
  early as 1976
• In late 1979, EPA signs agreement to transfer the
  entire collection to CCP
• DOCUMERICA ships from Berkey KL in New York City
  to CCP in Jan. 1980
• 15,900 color transparencies, duplicates, fiche
  and supporting files, estimated value 450,000
• DOCUMERICAs time at CCP is short-lived, Jan.
  1980 to May 1981
• National Archives takes possession of DOCUMERICA
  in May 1981

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DOCUMERICA at NARA (College Park, Maryland)
Archives I, Washington, D.C.
Archives II, College Park, Maryland
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DOCUMERICA in ARC (Archival Research Catalog)
http//www.archives.gov/research/arc/
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DOCUMERICA in the era of social media (Web 2.0)
July 2009 NARA begins building a photostream on
Flickr.com featuring several hundred images from
DOCUMERICA
The Hitchhiker with his dog Tripper taken by
Charles ORear along U.S. Route 66 Near Topock,
Arizona, May 1972