In the Everyday: Gordan Parks

Publish Date: Feb. 20, 2026

The Crafton Hills College Library celebrates Black History Month with the exhibition In the Everyday: Gordon Parks. On view through Monday, March 9, 2026, this exhibition introduces early works of Gordon Parks from the Library of Congress, Office of War Information Collection and is curated by CHC Librarian, Krista Ivy. 

In the early 1940s, Parks joined the Office of War Information (OWI), a government agency created during World War II to document American life on the home front. The photographs on view capture the rhythms of daily life of a nation in transition—families gathered on front porches, workers navigating new wartime industries, and children at play in neighborhoods reshaped by migration. In Parks’ hands, these scenes transcend documentation. His images illuminate not only the social fabric of the 1940s but also the foundations of the humanistic style that would define his later, celebrated career.