This thesis examines similarities in photographs made by the contemporary photographer Keith Carter and photographers active with the Farm Security Administration during the 1930s. Stylistically and in function, works by Carter and these photographers comment on social and cultural values of a region. This thesis demonstrates that many of Carter's black and white photographs continue, contribute to, and expand traditions in American documentary photography established in the 1930s. These traditions include the representation of a specific geographic place that evokes the spirit of a time and place, and the ability to communicate to a viewer certain social conditions and values related to such a place.