Lucille Burroughs

I have worked with street children in Brazil and in refugee camps in Bangladesh and living conditions are deplorable. However, upon reading Agee's book I would say that conditions in Depression era Alabama appear to be nearly as bad. The photos here and even in the book are deceiving. The house may appear "huge" yet two of the four rooms in the home were completely unusable due gaping holes in the walls and the roof having collapsed. This left two, quite small rooms a kitchen and a bedroom, in the rear of the house. When you also factor in the lack of food, medical supplies etc. I think the Burroughs's life was on the par with the poorest of third world families today.

You asked where Lucille is today - Sadly she committed suicide in 1971. The Pulitzer Prize-winning book "And Their Children After Them" by Dale Maharidge, Michael Williamson and Carl Mydans tells the story. Her name is changed in the book to Maggie Louise.

I'm afraid that a great percentage of the world's population today live in far worse circumstances. I enjoyed your link to the other pics. This looks like a huge house by most standards, clean and liveable. Lucille herself is a beautiful child. I'd be curious how she is today.

I haven't seen the whole Shorpy site yet (new member today and I'm so enjoying these great pics), so I don't know if these have been covered here, but I thought people might like to see these pics I found of Lucille, her family, and their home at the time.

Hard to believe human beings lived like this.

Cheers,

TD (aka Rhonda)

for a good time call
http://www.tinyd.net

"Strong and long-limbed like her father, Lucille Burroughs at age ten could pick 150 pounds of cotton a day. She also inherited a less useful legacy: her parents' lifelong debt to a landlord who owned their cabin, farm, tools, mules and the product of all their labor."
Lifted from a Metropolitain Museum of Art web site concerning a photo of Lucille Burroughts and her father

this photo is used on the young adult book out of the dust