These color slides were produced and collected by the staff of the Photography Division within the USDA's Office of Information (later renamed the Office of Communications). The USDA also hired freelance photographers for assignments; their work appears in this series as well. In addition, the Photography Division frequently acquired photographs from other agencies within USDA, including the Forest Service, Soil Conservation Service, and the Agricultural Research Service. The origins of these photographs are noted on the slide mounts.
Along with the large historical photo file of black and white images (RG 16, Series G), these color images form a large collection of topics relating to agriculture and related activities in the United States. Topics of interest include farm equipment and machinery, farmland, food distribution, insect research, livestock diseases, animal and plant quarantine stations, silos and silage, and transportation of goods. In addition, there is coverage of children, cities and towns, pollution, and of conditions of urban and rural poverty.
There are a wide variety of photographs of interest in this series, covering subjects as diverse as a 1959 view of Mt. St. Helens, WA (16-GK-Sce-Mount-0-18), and views of the aftermath of the 1965 Los Angeles riots (16-GK-Pov-3-1-1-1 to 3-1-21), to the singer Liberace (16-GK-Peo-A&C-0-21), and the USDA mascot "Woodsy Owl" (16-GK- P+S-USDA-0-15).
Personalities found in this series include Presidents Lyndon Johnson (16-GK-Per- Johnson, L.-0-1), Richard Nixon (16-GK-Per-Nixon-0-4), and Gerald Ford (16-GK-Per- Ford-0-1), Attorney General Robert Kennedy (16-GK-Per-Kennedy-0-1), and USDA Secretaries Earl Butz (16-GK-Per-Butz-0-1), Bob Bergland (16-GK-Per-Bergland-0-5), Orville Freeman (16-GK-Per-Freeman-1-16), and John Block (16-GK-Per-Block-0-20).
The majority of these slides cover the years 1959 to 1975, although there are a few slides from earlier and later than this period. For other color photographs of agricultural activities, see RG 16, Series TN and VS.
