photos by Dorothea Lange
Napa Valley, California.
Near Ontario, Malheur County, Oregon.
Mother and baby of family on the road. Tulelake, Siskiyou County, California.
Cotton worker in Sunday clothes. Near Blytheville, Arkansas.
The Arnold children and mother on their newly fenced and newly cleared land. Note strawberry plants. Western Washington, Thurston County, Michigan Hill.
Young migrant mother has just finished washing. Merrill FSA (Farm Security Administration) camp, Klamath County, Oregon.
Lighthearted kids in Merrill FSA (Farm Security Administration) camp, Klamath County, Oregon.
Merrill, Klamath County, Oregon.
Unemployed lumber worker goes with his wife to the bean harvest. Note social security number tattooed on his arm. Oregon.
Zollie Lyons, Negro sharecropper, home from the field for dinner at noontime, and part of his family. He has thirteen acres of tobacco and a labor force of five. Upchurch, Wake County, North Carolina.
Migrant child in Shafter camp, Farm Security Administration. California.
In a carrot pickers' camp, Imperial Valley, California. Woman from Broken Bow, Oklahoma. "Are you going to take my picture, wait till I get my hair combed".
Tenant farmer. Chatham County, North Carolina.
A grandmother from Oklahoma. She works in the California pea fields. Calipatria, California.
Daughter of migrant Tennessee coal miner. Living in the American River Camp near Sacramento, California.
Nipomo, Calif. Mar. 1936. Migrant agricultural worker's family. Seven hungry children. Mother aged 32, the father is a native Californian. Destitute in a pea pickers camp, because of the failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tent in order to buy food. Most of the 2,500 people in this camp were destitute.
Children of turpentine worker near Cordele, Alabama. The father earns one dollar a day.
Mississippi Delta Negro children.
Rural shacktown, near Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Muscella, Georgia. Peach pickers.
Drought refugees from Abilene, Texas, following the crops of California as migratory workers. Said the father: “The finest people in this world live in Texas but I just can’t seem to accomplish nothin’ there. Two year drought, then a crop, then two years drought and so on. I got two brothers still trying to make it back there.”
On U.S. 99. Near Brawley, Imperial County. Homeless mother and youngest child of seven walking the highway from Phoenix, Arizona where they picked cotton. Bound for San Diego, where the father hopes to get on relief "because he once lived there."
Negro child. Hill House, Mississippi.
Ten year old son of tobacco sharecropper can do a "hand's work" at tobacco harvest time. Granville County, North Carolina.
Father crippled with rheumatism. When well he works in a chair making factory. Orange County, North Carolina.
Here are the farmers who have bought machinery cooperatively. Photographed just before they go to dinner on the Miller farm where they are working. West Carlton, Yamhill County, Oregon.
On main street of Williamette Valley town. Independence, Polk County, Oregon.
Granville County, North Carolina.
Young sharecropper and his first child. Hillside Farm. Person County, North Carolina.
Migratory Boy.
Drought refugees from Oklahoma camping by the roadside. They hope to work in the cotton fields. The official at the border (California-Arizona) inspection service said that on this day,August 17,1936,twenty-three car loads and truck loads of migrant families out of the drought counties of Oklahoma and Arkansas had passed throught that station entering California up to 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
Drought farmers line the shady side of the main street on the town while their crops burn up in the fields.
Child living in Oklahoma City shacktown.
Photo of people on U.S. 99. Near Brawley, Imperial County. Homeless family of seven, walking the highway from Phoenix, Arizona, where they picked cotton. Bound for San Diego, where the father hopes to get on the relief because he once lived there, February 1939.
Heads of families on the Mineral King cooperative farm. Ten families are now established on this 500 acre ranch to be operated as a unit. (Farm Security Administration) Tulare County, California.
Fifty-seven year old sharecropper woman. Hinds County, Mississippi. Thin dimes around the ankles to prevent headaches.
Just arrived from Kansas. On highway going to potato harvest. Near Merrill,Klamath County,Oregon.