A Photo Essay on the Great Depression

In one of the largest pea camps in California. February, 1936.

The photograph that has become known as "Migrant Mother" is one of a series of photographs that Dorothea Lange made in February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. Lange was concluding a month's trip photographing migratory farm labor around the state for what was then the Resettlement Administration.

Porch of a sharecropper's cabin. Hale County, Alabama, Summer 1936 Porch of a sharecropper's cabin. Hale County, Alabama, Summer 1936. The marginal and oppressive economy of sharecropping largely collapsed during the great Depression.

People living in miserable poverty, Elm Grove, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma. August 1936.

Waiting for the semimonthly relief checks at Calipatria, Imperial Valley, California.

Leland, Mississippi, in the Delta area, June 1937.

Part of the daily lineup outside the State Employment Service Office Part of the daily lineup outside the State Employment Service Office. Memphis, Tennessee. June 1938.

Young boys waiting in kitchen of city mission for soup which is given out nightly. Dubuque, Iowa. April 1940. For millions, soup kitchens offered the only food they would eat.

Durham, North Carolina, May 1940.

Upstairs bedroom of family on relief, Chicago, Illinois. April 1941

Children at Hill House, Mississippi.

Sharecropper house on dirt Sharecropper house on dirt. Dirt log cabin on right is much older than attached frame cabin on left. Both have halfstones. Note dog run and flowering plants in tin can and tubs. This is typical of Negro dwellings. Log build visible. Through the back door is the corncrib. Near Olive Hill, North Carolina.

An African-American maid.

Mississippi Delta children.

Plantation cotton cabin. Mississippi Delta, near Vicksburg.

Tenant family near Greensboro, Alabama.

Houses in Eutaw, Alabama.

Church near Paradis, Louisiana

Main street. Greensboro, Alabama.

Part of RR (Rural Rehabilitation) family: children have hookworm, mother has pellagra and milk leg, according to nurse's report. Father works on WPA (Work Projects Administration). Coffee County, Alabama.

This woman, wife of an ex-farmer now living on relief, had pellagra in an advanced stage. She has had some treatment and shown great improvement but there were still evidences of mental disturbance. She was the mother of twelve children. The child in her arms has malaria as have probably the entire family. Jefferson, Texas.