John Vachon came to Washington, D.C., from Minnesota to attend Catholic University. At age 21 he became an "assistant messenger" at the Farm Security Administration. There Roy Stryker, ever evangelical about his agency's photographs, urged John Vachon: "When you do the filing, why don't you look at the pictures."

John Vachon took Stryker's advice and was soon hooked on photography. After lessons by Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, and Arthur Rothstein, John Vachon soon graduated to become an FSA photographer in his own right. Although he is best known for the photographs he took in and around Omaha, Nebraska, he took the pictures of Arkansas migrants shown here in Berrien, Michigan.

Learn about other Arkansas photographers, such as Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.