4000+ fine-art prints suitable for framing. Desk-size to sofa-size and larger, on archival paper or canvas.
The Shorpy Gallery
Join and Share
Social Shorpy
To love him is to like him. Our goal: 100k "likes":
Recent comments
- Long-lasting technology
- The only thing missing
- Not so easy on the eyes
- Lighting adjustment
- Cut and paste
- To the news
- Light fixture cages
- 67th Street
- Another Stunner
- Said Mother McG to her gullible son
- Bat boy
- "Hazy lazy crazy days of summer"
- Holy i-ball Batman!
- In the heat of the day
- Many lost summers ago
- Darned lei!
- At first glance,
- The checkboard
- A matter of economy.
- Some buildings still there
- The Lost Weekend
- A short beer ?
- Almost the Buddy System
- Switches? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Switches
- Incredib-El
- Great place
- Answer me this
- Last Ride
- Which way?
- A great safety technique
Member Photos
Photos submitted by Shorpy members.
Colorized Photos
Colorized photos submitted by members.
About the Photos
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.
Image Galleries
Search Shorpy
Americus: 1937
Submitted by Dave on Sun, 08/16/2009 - 6:13pm.
Tags:
July 1937. "Thirteen-year old sharecropper boy near Americus, Georgia." Medium-format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange. View full size.
Brings back memories.
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Mon, 09/07/2009 - 1:03am.
That boy looks like my brother Bill.
Hard work
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Wed, 08/19/2009 - 12:02pm.
My grandfather used to tell tales of walking all day behind one of these bottom plows, all day, one row at the time. There are still very many of these one-row plows stored away and forgotten sitting under barns all over Georgia to this day.
Today we have air conditioned cabs and 10+ row plows that can do in less than an hour what it would probably take this boy the better part of a week to do.
From what I can make out it looks like cotton he's plowing.
Is it 100% real
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Wed, 08/19/2009 - 9:10am.
Certain aspects of the clothes, appearance of the subject, the pose, all these items together just make me feel this is a fabricated picture. They did do those things even back then.
[Click here, take a look at the 5,000 or so photos in this series and judge for yourself. - Dave]
Poverty
Submitted by Loye on Tue, 08/18/2009 - 10:11pm.
Dave, this comment isn't really meant to be posted, but I want to thank you for not posting every comment that's submitted. As I'm sure you've found by now, just a simple photograph of a young black sharecropper will bring all sorts of racist comments. And who needs that?
[No such comments for this photo. - Dave]
Thanks for the great blog. It's one of my favorites. By the way, I'm live in New Orleans, so I especially enjoy the pictures of old New Orleans.
My grandfather used a plow like this.
Submitted by rgraham on Mon, 08/17/2009 - 3:14pm.
He was so young, the handles would smack him in the head if he hit a rock. Think about that.
There is nothing to say
Submitted by Rip Tragle on Mon, 08/17/2009 - 11:36am.
Just look into that face.
A powerful photo
Submitted by Silv Erchloride on Mon, 08/17/2009 - 7:41am.
Seventeen in 1941, I wonder if this boy would or could have enlisted. It looks like he's been working that plow for quite some years, and would be ready to move on, given any sort of chance; though he was possibly the family breadwinner.
THE 100-YEAR-OLD PHOTO BLOG
Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.
RSS | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Photo Use | © 2013 Shorpy Inc.
Today's Top 5