S01 · E120

'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men ': Alabama 40 Years On

At the height of the American depression in the summer of 1936, t writer JAMES AGEE and photographer WALKER EVANS travelled south to Alabama. There they lived with a family of poor-white farmers recording their daily lives in intimate detail. What finally emerged was an extraordinary and personal account of deprivation and poverty. The book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men has become a classic. More than 40 years later Arena returned to Alabama, in the foot-steps of Agee and Evans, to trace the survivors of that original family.