Government

One Photographer's Mission to Document How Every State Lives

Carol M. Highsmith is out to create a comprehensive visual record of the U.S.—and she's donating it all.
Highsmith's self portrait in the Willard Hotel in 1980 in a broken mirrorCarol M. Highsmith’s America/Library of Congress

On her lifelong mission to photograph the entire nation, Carol M. Highsmith estimates she's crossed the U.S. at least 25 times, ocean to ocean.

Her trips are always made by car, with a small arsenal of top-of-the-line digital cameras. She keeps her eye especially attuned to the architectural features of America: epic skyscrapers, disappearing roadside barns, utterly mundane office interiors.