November 1936. "Squatter camp on the flat where families live during the orange picking season near Porterville. Part of migrant family of five, native Californians, waiting for work in the groves." Photo by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

August 1939. "Pelican Bay Lumber Company. The burner is as characteristic of the Northwest landscape as grain elevators are to the Plains. There are many types of variations. It is an essential part of the sawmill. Disposes of sawdust and waste. Near Klamath Falls, Oregon." Photo by Dorothea Lange. View full size.

October 1939. "A stumpy valley where new farms are being established. Photos show character of land which settlers are buying -- stump land farmers making a new start in the Priest River Valley, Idaho." Medium format acetate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

July 1936. "Hillhouse, Mississippi. Girls with food for Fourth of July celebration at Delta Cooperative Farm settled by evicted sharecroppers from Arkansas, organized in 1935 by Sherwood Eddy, a New York writer and reformer." Photo by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

July 1939. Person County, North Carolina. "Millworker's house six miles north of Roxboro." Medium format negative by Dorothea Lange. View full size.

July 1939. "Sign tacked to pole near the post office. Main street, Pittsboro, North Carolina." This photo by Dorothea Lange, which has attracted no small amount of bemused commentary over the years, requires two avenues of explanation. The first is that Lange was a connoisseur of quirky signage, snapping away at whatever outre malapropism, mangled spelling or jarring juxtaposition might present itself by the side of the road (see here, here, here, here and here; there are dozens more). The second is that "piccolo" was Depression-era slang for jukebox or nickelodeon; a piccolo party's dancing was to canned music rather than a live band. Hence the PICKLE-LOW PARTY that will go on forever, thanks to the combined efforts of G.W. Leach, A.A. Hopkins and D. Lange. View full size.

September 1939. "Ernest W. Kirk Jr. with his two sons on their farm near Ordway, Colorado. They hold fruits of their farm, coming from their labor, which has placed them in a few months from almost hopeless condition to a family with net worth approaching a thousand dollars." Medium format negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

July 1939. "In the post office on a Saturday afternoon. Pittsboro, North Carolina." Medium format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange. View full size.

July 1939. "Young North Carolinian in old Ford. He does not farm. 'Works for wages.' At Tuck's filling station. Person County, N.C." Medium format negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

November 1936. "Portraits of destitute migrant agricultural workers and their children. Boy, fourteen, in eighth grade. Now unable to attend because of insufficient food and clothing. Subsisted two days on frozen tomatoes from field nearby. Father says, 'They call me a road hog and a bum, but if I am, how did that boy get into the eighth grade?' American River camp, near Sacramento." Photo by Dorothea Lange for the Resettlement Administration. View full size.

November 1936. "Children and home of cotton workers at migratory camp in southern San Joaquin Valley, California." Medium format negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

November 1936. "Migratory family in automobile camp, California." Photo by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

February 1939. "Madera County, California. Family from near Dallas, Texas. Rent is $5 a month. There's no future here. I've been following the work (migratory labor) but there's no chance for a fellow to get aholt hisself in this country. The last job I had is tractor driving for 35 cents an hour. Had that job for five months until a Filipino comes along for 25 cents an hour. I was raised on a cotton farm my father owned, a little place back there, and I'm plumb willing to leave this country for good before I get too old, If I could get the chance to farm." Photo by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

December 1938. "Napa Valley. More than 25 years a bindlestiff. [Also seen here.] Walks from the mines to the lumber camps to the farms. The type that formed the backbone of the Industrial Workers of the World in California before the war. Subject of Carleton Parker's studies on Industrial Workers of the World." Photo by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

February 1939. "In a carrot pullers' camp, Imperial Valley, California, near Holtville. Women from Broken Bow, Oklahoma." Medium format negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.