Tag Archives: Walker Evans

today’s birthday: James Agee (1909)


James Agee (1909)

Agee was an American novelist, screenwriter, journalist, poet, and film critic who wrote for several magazines, including Fortune, Time, and The Nation. His first major book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a commentary on the lives of Southern tenant farmers in the 1930s with accompanying photographs by Walker Evans, was a commercial flop at the time of its original publication but has won high praise over the years. Which book earned Agee a posthumous Pulitzer Prize? More… Discuss

Today’s Birthday: WALKER EVANS (1903)


Walker Evans (1903)

Evans was an American photographer known for his stark photos of the rural South during the Great Depression, taken for the Farm Security Administration. In 1936,Fortune magazine sent Evans and writer James Agee to document poverty in rural Alabama. The magazine rejected their work, but the two used the material for their landmark 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. A 2005 Fortune article revealed that some of their subjects were upset about the book for what reasons? More… Discuss