When the camera was invented,
photographers learned that they no longer needed oil paint and brushes to capture a scene or
a person. On film, they could now record the life and times of the period in which they lived, either from a sense of mission or simply to leave an accurate version of their life and times for others. This paper provides an in-depth look at the lives, times and works of several
photographers who captured America's history on photographic film. The paper discusses Matthew Brady who documented the realities of the American Civil War, Jacob Riis who condemned the deplorable
conditions in New York City at the end of the 19th Century and the unobtrusive Dorothea Lange who photographed the plight of the American people during the Great Depression and went on to become the first woman awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. The paper also discusses the works of Walker Evans who was hired by the Resettlement Administration to photograph the Depression and Lewis Hine who educated the American public on the plight of children working under deplorable conditions.