The pictures taken by Dorothea Lange and other Farm Security Administration photographers during the 1930s have become iconic images of Depression-era America. In the Soviet Union during the same period, photographers pictured the collectivization of farms and industry.

"Propaganda and Dreams: Photographing the 1930s in the USSR and the US," an exhibition at Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art that runs through Oct. 3, compares these two remarkable bodies of photographic work for the first time. In considering the meaning of these pictures, the show questions how we read them today and challenges our collective beliefs about the '30s and about photography itself.

The Corcoran Gallery of Art is at 17th Street and New York Avenue N.W. in Washington. Hours are Wednesday through Monday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays to 9 p.m.