Humanities and Social Sciences Library > Collections & Reading Rooms > Photography Collection

Selected Collections Not Currently Available Online

Farm Security Administration Collection
The FSA Collection comprises approximately 35,000 photographs. These photographs document American life between the years 1935 and 1944, and offer a portrait of Americans during the Great Depression as well as the country’s mobilization for World War II. Subject matter includes the lives of migratory agricultural laborers, sharecroppers, miners and industrial workers. The images also document changes in farming practices and the increasing industrialization of American labor.

This collection is not currently available online, but the complete FSA archive is available through the Library of Congress. For more information about the FSA Collection please contact the Photography Collection staff or plan a visit to see the collection in the Prints and Photographs Study Room at The New York Public Library.

Midtown Y Photography Collection
The Midtown Y Photography Collection and Archives was bequeathed to The New York Public Library in 1998 after the closing of the gallery in 1996. Founded in 1972, the Midtown Y Photography Gallery was located at the Emanu-El Midtown YM-YWHA on 14th Street. The Gallery promoted and showed the work of emerging artists, offered portfolio reviews, and presented a film and lecture series.

This collection is not currently available online. For more information about The Midtown Y Photography Collection, please contact the Photography Collection staff. The Midtown Y Photography Collection will be the subject of a new retrospective exhibition opening in the spring of 2007.

Particular Voices: Robert Giard's Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers
Beginning in 1985, at the height of the AIDS crisis, Robert Giard (1939 - 2002) made more than 600 portraits of gay and lesbian American writers. The Photography Collection began acquiring his work in 1990 and now has over 200 of these portraits. In 1997, MIT Press published a selection of Giard’s portraits, Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers, which was followed in 1998 by a companion exhibition at the Library. This is the only significant public collection of Giard’s photographs in New York, and it complements several other collections within the Library, notably Bruce Cratsley's photographic coverage of New York's Gay Pride Parade (1984-1995) and Joseph Caputo's photographs of the first AIDS quilt presentation in Washington, D.C. (both in the Photography Collection); and the archives of the International Gay Information Center, ACT UP/NY, and the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (all in the Archives and Manuscripts Division).

A list of writers whose portraits are in the Collection is available here.

Therese Bonney Collection
Mabel Therese Bonney (1897-1978) was a photographer who operated a press agency in Paris between World War I and World War II. The M. Therese Bonney Collection comprises approximately 6,320 gelatin silver prints and includes work by both Ms. Bonney and other photographers. The images in the Bonney Collection offer views of New York, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The Collection documents a wide variety of subjects including landscapes and villages, clothing and dress, domestic interiors, gardening and farming. The Bonney Collection also documents World War II and its resulting impact on civilians and children and includes images of refugees, hospitals, war relief and the work of the Red Cross.

This collection is not currently available online. For more information about the collection please link to the Therese Bonney Collection’s CATNYP record.