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Article: Gordon Parks: JS celebrates the work of a great American photographer.(Special)(Junior Scholastic)(Biography)
- Article from:
- Junior Scholastic
- Article date:
- February 11, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Scholastic, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Born to a poor farm family in Kansas in 1912, Gordon Parks became a pioneering photographer, writer, and movie director. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, he was working as a railroad porter when he came across a magazine with photographs of migrant farmworkers.
"I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs," he later said. "I knew at that point I had to have a camera."
Parks bought his first camera in a pawnshop and was soon taking fashion photos. In 1942, he got a fellowship to work in the Farm Security Administration [FSA], a government agency ...