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	Record Group Number:	900000
	Series/Collection Number:	M88- 73
	Creator:	Foster, Charles C.
	Title, Dates:	Florida WPA Conch Town photographs, 1939.
	Amount:	30 photographs
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	Biographical/Historical:	Charles C. Foster, born in 1913 in Jacksonville, Florida, was an aspiring artist when the Great Depression struck the Sunshine State. He joined the WPA as an artist in 1935 after a stint with the Civilian Conservation Corps in Alabama, where he also worked as an artist. In the summer of 1938, Foster was assigned to take photographs for Florida Writers Project (FWP) writer Veronica Huss' profile of the Conchs in Riviera Beach. "Conch" was a derisive term used by locals for Bahamian immigrants. Although the WPA did not publish their work, the Library of Congress preserves transcriptions and recordings of the Conchs' tales and songs that Huss collected with assistance from folklorist Stetson Kennedy. Foster gathered 30 images out of the original 48, wrote captions for them, and created a traveling photographic exhibit for the WPA's Florida Art Project, titled "Conch Town," that went across the state and the nation between 1939 and 1943. Foster resigned from the WPA in 1939 to work in advertising and later taught commercial art for the National Youth Administration's Camp Roosevelt in Ocala. After years of working in commercial art, Foster finally published his Riviera Beach photographs along with Huss' research in 1991 as "Conchtown, USA: Bahamian Fisherfolk in Riviera Beach, Florida."
	Summary:	This series consists of 30 black and white 10.5 x 10.5 photographs (mounted on 16 x 20 poster boards) created by photographer Charles Foster in May 1939 for the Florida WPA. Originally taken for a Florida Writer's Project book on Florida Conchs (Bahamian immigrants), Foster later used them in a traveling exhibit for the Florida Art Project. The collection also contains the catalogue and mounting instructions that accompanied the exhibit, bound in a hand-painted booklet.
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	Additional Physical Form:	These images have been digitized and are available on the Florida Memory web site: https://www.floridamemory.com/discover/photographs/
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	General Note:	Florida Photographic Collection Numbers P1988-073
	Electronic Records Access:	https://www.floridamemory.com/discover/photographs/
	Subject Access Fields:	Foster, Charles C. Florida Art Project. Works Progress Administration (U.S.) Federal Writers' Project (Fla.) United States. Works Progress Administration. Bahamian Americans. Fishing Florida Immigrants Florida New Deal, 1933-1939. Photographs. aat Palm Beach (Fla.) Palm Beach County (Fla.)
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