Russell Lee - Farm families

Here are photos of American farm families from the late 1930s. Most were poverty-stricken. Some were clients of the Farm Security Administration, created during the New Deal in 1935 to help alleviate rural poverty.

 FSA clients near Carutherville, Missouri, 1938

Family of FSA client shredding cabbage, Southeast Missouri Farms, 1938

 Family of FSA client, former sharecropper, on porch of old shack home, New Madrid County, Missouri, 1938

Family of Glen Cook, who rents his farm from a loan company, Woodbury County, Iowa, 1936

 Family of Henry McPeak, near Black River Falls, Wisconsin, 1937

 Mother and child former sharecropper, now FSA clients, Southeast Missouri Farms, 1938

 J. Donnell Champion and his two children who received a start from resettlement, 1936

Gernie Marshall and family, near Ringgold, Iowa, 1937

 Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Ostermeyer, homesteaders, Miller Township, Woodbury County, Iowa, 1936

 Mr. and Mrs. Charles Banta, farmers near Anthon, Iowa, 1936

 Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Miller and dog, Spencer, Iowa, 1936

 Part of Alfred Atkinson family, a tenant farmer of eighty acres near Shannon City, Ringgold County, Iowa, 1936

 Part of sharecropper family on porch of cabin, 1938

 Sharecropper family on front porch of cabin, Southeast Missouri Farms, 1938

 Sharecropper with two grandchildren, Southeast Missouri Farms, 1938

The Earl Taylor family near Black River Falls, Wisconsin, 1937