"Migrant pea pickers camp in the rain. California." Feb. 1936. Photo by Dorothea Lange.

“Privy in cotton camp for migratory workers. California.” Nov. 1936. Photo by Dorothea Lange.

“Squatter camp. California.” Nov. 1936. Photo by Dorothea Lange.

Salinas Valley, California, 1939. Large scale, commercial agriculture. This single California county (Monterey) shipped 20,096 carlots of lettuce in 1934, or forty-five percent of all carlot shipments in the United States. In the same year 73.8 percent of all United States carlot shipments were made from Monterey County, Imperial Valley, California (7,797 carlots) and Maricopa County, Arizona (4,697). Production of lettuce is largely in the hands of a comparatively small number of grower-shippers, many of whom operate in two or all three of these Counties. Labor is principally Mexican and Filipino in the fields, and white American in the packing sheds. Many workers follow the harvests from one valley to the other, since plantings are staggered to maintain a fairly even flow of lettuce to the Eastern market throughout the year

Filipinos Cutting Lettuce. Salinas, California.”

June 1935. Photo by Dorothea Lange.

“Imperial Valley, California. Old Mexican laborer saying ‘I have worked all my life and all I have now is my broken body.’” June 1935.

Photo by Dorothea Lange.

Picker carrying peas to the weighmaster. Near Santa Clara, California, April 1937.

“Waiting for the semimonthly relief checks at Calipatria, Imperial Valley, California. Typical story: fifteen years ago they owned farms in Oklahoma. Lost them through foreclosure when cotton prices fell after the war. Became tenants and sharecroppers. With the drought and dust they came West, 1934–1937. Never before left the county where they were born. Now although in California over a year they haven’t been continuously resident in any single county long enough to become a legal resident. Reason: migratory agricultural laborers.” March 1937. Photo by Dorothea Lange.

Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child (1445)

Jacob Riis

Lewis Hine

Florence Thompson and her daughters, 1979

“Plantation owner. Mississippi Delta, near Clarksdale, Mississippi.” June 1936.

Photo by Dorothea Lange.

Negro on the Aldridge Plantation, Mississippi. "We know our white folks (planters) and just what to say to please them“Dorothea Lange, 1937

Child of impoverished Negro tenant family working on farm. Alabama.” July 1936.

Photo by Dorothea Lange.

Weighing cotton, Lake Dick Project, ArkansasBen Shahn

Weighing in cotton, Tulare County, CaliforniaRussell Lee

“Evicted Arkansas sharecropper. One of the more active of the union members (Southern Tenant Farmers Union). Now building his new home at Hill House, Mississippi.”

July 1936. Photo by Dorothea Lange.