American Gothic, Washington, D.C.

Before he began his influential career in photojournalism at Life magazine in 1948, Kansas native and African-American photographer Gordon Parks worked for the Farm Security Administation (FSA), the government agency created to document the effects of the Depression. American Gothic was taken while Parks was employed by the FSA in Washington, D.C. This portrait of Ella Watson, a cleaning woman at the FSA offices, is Parks's most famous photograph. Although he is best known for his work as a photographer, Parks was also an author, director, poet, filmmaker, composer, and painter.