From the Camera to the Web: DOCUMERICA’s 30-Year Journey Jerry Simmons, Archives Specialist

1. From the Camera to the Web: DOCUMERICA’s 30-Year Journey Jerry Simmons, Archives Specialist National Archives and Records Administration College Park, Maryland

2. Oil slick on New York Harbor at Liberty Island, May 1973, by Chester Higgins

3. 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

4. DOCUMERICA captured the nationwide crisis, East Boston Jamaica Bay Gulf Coast beach John’s Island, South Carolina

5. the controversy,

6. the upbeat and positive,

7. and sometimes, the downright creepy.

8. 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.

9. Hampshire’s 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

10. Hampshire’s 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.

11. 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 O’Rear View of Mount Drum, Alaska, near the point of the proposed Oil pipeline crossing, by Dennis Cowals

12. Well known U.S. photographers contribute: David Hiser Arthur Tress Charles O’Rear Danny Lyon Bill Gillette

13. DOCUMERICA on exhibit and on the road … Numerous local viewings of early images introduce the American public to the EPA’s 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

14. Images of America’s environmental and social crisis in vivid color: Pollution in the air and water, deforestation, strip mining, and urban sprawl go unchecked …

15. Images of hope for the future … civic concern, government action and personal innovation give us hope for a brighter future.

16. 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:

17. DOCUMERICA phases out, 1977-1979 EPA administrators lose interest and funding evaporates Love America, Stop Strip Mining, Oct. 1973, by Erik Calonius

18. 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 K&L in New York City to CCP in Jan. 1980 • 15,900+ color transparencies, duplicates, fiche and supporting files, estimated value: $450,000 • DOCUMERICA’s time at CCP is short-lived, Jan. 1980 to May 1981 • National Archives takes possession of DOCUMERICA in May 1981

19. DOCUMERICA at NARA (College Park, Maryland) Archives I, Washington, D.C. Archives II, College Park, Maryland

20. DOCUMERICA in ARC (Archival Research Catalog) http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/

21. 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 O’Rear along U.S. Route 66 Near Topock, Arizona, May 1972