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.

July 1939. Person County, North Carolina. A tobacco curing barn ready for "putting in," with fuel stacked on either side. The sticks are fed in through the small openings at the base. Piece of sheet iron on the left is used to cover the opening of the furnace when starting the fire. View full size. Medium-format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration.
I really love these old tobacco barn scenes. I was there except about 10 years later and in Wilson County, NC. Harvest and curing times were exciting because kids knew the really hard work was ending and trips to the auction warehouses would start soon. Many farmers used mules and wagons for the trip to town.Tobacco would be unloaded the first day and the sale was the next. The trip home with money in hand kept us looking for next year.
Today's Top 5