History: Documerica, Environmental Photography Document Program, 1972-1977, United States

The images were made by approximately 70 well-known photographers contracted by the EPA for this project. Photographers included Danny Lyon, Gene Daniels, Marc St. Gil, Bill Strode, Charles O'Rear, Jack Corn, Tomas Sennett, Yoichi Okamote, Ken Hayman, and John H. White.
Like the earlier Federal photographic project of the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression, some of the DOCUMERICA photographers interpreted their mission rather broadly, and sometimes artistically. Many preserve a distinct visual record of time and place.
Some of the subjects photographed are urban cityscapes, everyday life in small towns, scenes of natural beauty including beachs and mountains, urban areas including junk yards, streets, buildings, and traffic control; Amtrak; air and water pollution; waterfronts; mining scenes; and people. Areas included are National Parks and Forests, Lake Tahoe, the Great Lakes, the Alaskan Pipeline, Hawaii, Washington, D.C. and cities throughout the United States. The project even wound up including some photographs of Canada, and even Yugoslavia and Austria
Digital scans of over 15,000 of the original 35mm color slides and black and white negatives and prints are available through the National Archives and Records Administration's Archival Research Catalog.