Image – A Farmer’s Life

Chapter 23

A Farmer’s Life

Snapped in 1936 by Dorothea Lange when she worked for the Farm Security Administration, this poignant photograph captures the downtrodden conditions of many residents of the rural South in the 1930s.   The photograph shows a turpentine worker's family near Cordele, Alabama.    The breadwinner, who is not in the photo, earned just $1.00 a day.   The longleaf pine forests that covered much of the Deep South formed the basis for a turpentine industry that had flourished in the region since before the Civil War.  The work was arduous, and workers were treated little better than slaves.