Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.

June 1938. Nettie Featherston, wife of a migratory laborer with three children. Near Childress, Texas. "If you die, you're dead – that's all." View full size. Photo: Dorothea Lange. Bio of Nettie (1898-1984) and audio interview.

U.S. 99 in Kern County on the Tehachapi Ridge. February 1939. Migrant workers travel seasonally back and forth between the Imperial Valley and San Joaquin Valley over this ridge. View full size. Photograph by Dorothea Lange. (The billboard up ahead: "76 miles to GRAPEVINE air cooled cafe.")

Dorothea Lange, Resettlement Administration photographer, in California atop car with her giant camera. February 1936. View full size.

Fourth of July 1939 near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. "Rural filling stations become community centers and general loafing grounds. Cedargrove Team members about to play in a baseball game." Medium-format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange. View full size.

June 1938. Caddo, Oklahoma. Migrants leave the small towns as well as the farms of the southwest. This region is a source of many emigrants to the Pacific Coast. View full size. Photograph by Dorothea Lange.

July 1939. Tenant farmer in Chatham County, North Carolina. View full size. Farm Security Administration photograph by Dorothea Lange.

April 1939. Farm Security Administration migrant camp at Westley, California. Migrant mother with sick baby and agricultural workers medical association card. View full size. Photograph by Dorothea Lange.