Collection of 81 Vintage Photographs of Federal Public Housing Projects, Mounted for Exhibition.

Vintage prints and exhibition panels document the considerable and infrequently discussed work of the Federal Public Housing Authority [FPHA] during World War II. The agency was created shortly after Pearl Harbor to meet wartime housing needs. In addition to wide powers of production and requisition to support construction, the FPHA consolidated all prewar nonfarm federal housing projects – i.e. holdings transferred from the Farm Security Administration and the Resettlement Administration; the low-rent Public Works Administration housing projects; and those administered by the US Housing Act of 1937 (many of which are documented in the current collection). 

Wartime housing mobilization ultimately provided shelter for more than nine million people, including four million workers and their families who moved to be near the centers of industrial war production (in-migrant workers). About half of the people were settled in existing, repurposed, or rehabilitated housing. But 1,900,000 new housing units were also required. In addition to shelter, these new communities required infrastructure and facilities: from sewers to schools. Whole new towns were built.   

This collection presents examples of the FPHA work from almost every state, broadly broken into four groups: 1)  the low-rent housing programs created before the war (with photos presenting the history of public housing and “the problem of slums”, housing for minorities [14% of FPHA housing in 1944 was for “Negro occupancy” in segregated projects that did not begin to be desegregated until 1962], and rural housing)  2) permanent war housing, 3) temporary war housing, 4) converted properties and 5) reused housing.

Depicted here are many different types of housing and community facilities (both temporary and permanent) as well as postwar conversions and reuse for the continuing housing crisis created by the demobilization of the armed forces in 1944 and 1945. In some cases veterans were able to occupy units vacated by war workers returning to their prewar homes, but the FPHA also made use of new movable (demountable) and prefabricated housing construction, as seen in these photographs. One photograph demonstrates the “depanelization” of temporary housing - houses were simply cut apart, moved, and reassembled. In some examples residences were reassembled into utility buildings or warehouses, reusing and repurposing scarce wartime materials in FPHA “experiments”. 

After the war the approximately 230,000 units of permanent housing created by the FPHA were leased to local public housing agencies or sold. Examples represented in this collection include well known public projects across the country. But some of the temporary sites were also maintained for decades after the war, e.g. the quonset huts at Roger Young Village, Los Angeles.

We speculate that these images were printed and mounted for public presentation or exhibition, accompanying in some way the publication of the book Public Housing: The Work of the Federal Public Housing Authority (printed March 1946), which reproduces some of the images found in this collection. Thus we suggest a likely printing date of  1945-46.

A large, unstudied group of material relevant to the history of affordable housing, urban planning, photography, exhibitions, and exhibition design.

Authored by Federal Public Housing Authority [identifiable photographers include Arthur Rothstein, Peter Sekaer, John Vachon, et al.]. Printed ca. 1945-46.  

81 black and white photographs mounted for presentation on heavy card stock; 75 of these photographs are loose, six are bound in pairs (i.e. three double spreads). Individual panels are each approx. 22.7 x 30.5 cm and consist of a photographic print (all approx. 20 x 30.5 cm) with separately printed and mounted captions identifying locations. Most also with an in-caption reference numbers confirmed with the National Archives and Record Administration to be one of the following: PWA/FSA or PHA negative numbers; Federal project or construction contract numbers; or local identifiers including geographic identification numbers. All panels have two metal grommets at the top edge (for hanging?). Photographs in the series are numbered to 85, with 1 un-numbered and 3 double spreads numbered singly (i.e. nos. 4, 68, and 69 consist of 2 photographs each). Lacking nos. 1-3, 25-28, 58, and 62, quite possibly there were other photographs in the series beyond no. 85. Together with exhibiting materials comprised of 11 descriptive text panels of the same size and 17 small mounted captions approx. 5 x 23 cm. Ten of the 11 text panels are given section identifiers: A, B, C-1, C-2, C-3, D, E, F, G, H. 

Overall condition of the photographic prints is very good, some rubbing and edge wear to the mounts; rippling visible in some of the images is limited to the pasted paper captions and does not affect the prints themselves.