When viewers today envision the Great Depression, the world of images called to mind are black-and-white. The most famous of these pictures were taken by the photographic division of the Farm Security Administration, which produced an archive of more than 160,000 photographs between 1935 and 1944. Photographers including Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Russell Lee documented the plight of impoverished America—farmers and migrant workers struggling under severe conditions—in the hopes that exposure would elicit support for New Deal government’s expensive programming.

However, these black-and-white photographs do not tell the whole story. Lee was one of group of younger FSA photographers who experimented with Kodachrome—the first color film available for widespread use—after it was introduced to the American market in 1936, together producing some 600 transparencies. Color photography was increasingly popular in the 1930s and 1940s, but the FSA ultimately felt that the color image was discordant with the documentary tone of the project and did not disseminate them. Consequently, color photographs such as this one from Pie Town, New Mexico, remain largely unknown even today.

Lee often carried two cameras, one loaded with black-and-white film and the other with color, and would shoot a scene with either or both film stocks, as he deemed appropriate. His photographs from Pie Town are among the most famous bodies of work produced for the agency.