History of America's Migrant Farmers in Photos

The United States of America has always been a diverse country and that is its strength. The following photos are a true representation of the people who have contributed and built this country with their bare hands. These are beautiful vintage black and white photography of America's farmers, farm workers, their working conditions, housing and families.

Title: Pueblo Indian Farmers Date Created/Published: c1890.
Summary: 5 male Indians, one holding hoe, one holding ox yoke; Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico

Title: A Chinese farmer turning the soil with a wooden plow drawn by donkeys
Date Created/Published: North Bennington, VT. : H.C. White, c1907.

Title: [Three adults and six children from seven years to twelve years hard at work on a sugar beet farm near Greeley Colorado. The father said: "The children can thin the beets better than grown ups. We all work fourteen hours a day at times because when the beets is ready they has to be done. About twelve weeks is about all the children can work on thinning and topping. Some of them hoe a little."
Location: [Greeley vicinity, Colorado] Creator(s): Hine, Lewis Wickes, photographer Date Created/Published: [1915 July]

Title: Six-year old Henry and three-year old Hilda, beet workers on a Wisconsin farm. Location: Wisconsin.
Creator(s): Hine, Lewis Wickes, photographer Date Created/Published: 1915 July.

Title: Group of shed workers at Wetstone farm, 14 of them were 12 to 14 yrs. old. Location: Vernon, Connecticut / L.W. Hine.  Creator(s): Hine, Lewis Wickes, photographer Date Created/Published: 1917 August 2.

Title: Migrant workers' camp, outskirts of Marysville, California. The new migratory camps now being built by the Resettlement Administration will remove people from unsatisfactory living conditions such as these and substitute at least the minimum of comfort and sanitation
Creator(s): Lange, Dorothea, photographer  Date Created/Published: 1935 Apr.

Title: Pea pickers' children, Nipomo, CA. Date Created/Published: 1935.

Title: Migrant agricultural worker's family. Seven hungry children. Mother aged thirty-two. Father is native Californian. Nipomo, California
Creator(s): Lange, Dorothea, photographer  Date Created/Published: 1936 Feb. or Mar.
Summary: Photo shows Florence Thompson with several of her children in a tent shelter as part of the "Migrant Mother" series.

Title: Canning plant employees grading beans. Dania, Florida. Many of these workers are migrants
Creator(s): Rothstein, Arthur, photographer Date Created/Published: 1937 Jan.

Title: Indian (mixed breed--"brass ankle") family near Summerville, South Carolina
Creator(s): Wolcott, Marion Post, photographer Date Created/Published: 1938 Dec.

Title: Migrant agricultural workers from Tennessee, Carolina, Alabama, Georgia living in overcrowded boardinghouse and working in packinghouses in Homestead, Florida
Creator(s): Wolcott, Marion Post, photographer Date Created/Published: 1939 Jan.

Title: Migrant workers' camp. Shantytown, Corpus Christi, Texas
Creator(s): Lee, Russell,  photographer Date Created/Published: 1939 Feb.

Title: Children of migrant cotton field workers from Sweetwater, Oklahoma. Eight children in the family. Note the housing. Near Casa Grande project, Arizona
Creator(s): Lange, Dorothea, photographer Date Created/Published: 1937 May.

Title: Migratory Mexican field worker's home on the edge of a frozen pea field. Imperial Valley, California
Creator(s): Lange, Dorothea, photographer Date Created/Published: 1937 Mar.

Title: Home of farm worker who works on corporation farm. Eighty Acres Glassboro, New Jersey
Creator(s): Rothstein, Arthur, photographer Date Created/Published: 1938 Oct.

Title: Filipinos waiting for the signal to start cutting lettuce. Near Westmorland, Imperial Valley, California
Creator(s): Lange, Dorothea, photographer 1939

Title: Veteran migrant agricultural worker and his family encamped on the Arkansas River, Wagoner County, Oklahoma  Creator(s): Lee, Russell, photographer Date Created/Published: 1939 June.

Title: White migrant worker living in camp with two other migrant men. His sleeping quarters and all worldly possession are to be seen in background. Harlingen, Texas Creator(s): Lee, Russell,  photographer Date Created/Published: 1939 Feb.

Title: Vegetable workers, migrants, waiting after work to be paid. Near Homestead, Florida
Creator(s): Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990, photographer  Date Created/Published: 1939 Feb.

Title: Migrant fruit worker and sons living in rear of truck during cherry picking season. Berrien County, Michigan  Creator(s): Vachon, John, photographer Date Created/Published: 1940 July.

Title: Mrs. Jaquin Silva, Portugese poultry farmer and market gardener, has seven hundred hens. Her two sons work in town. Chelmsford, Massachusetts
Creator(s): Delano, Jack, photographer Date Created/Published: 1941 Jan. 16.

Title: Mr. and Mrs. Ovgen Arakelian, Armenian vegetable farmers in West Andover, Massachusetts. They have an eleven-acre farm and a son works in a blanket factory in Lowell to help support the family Creator(s): Delano, Jack, photographer  Date Created/Published: 1941 Jan.

Title: Bridgeton, New Jersey. FSA (Farm Security Administration) agricultural workers' camp. In the pouring rain, the newly arrived migrants find shelter under the recreation tent
Creator(s): Collier, John, photographer  Date Created/Published: 1942 June.

Title: Shelley, Idaho. FSA (Farm Security Administration) mobile camp. Japanese girls playing Chinese checkers
Creator(s): Lee, Russell, 1903-1986, photographer Date Created/Published: 1942 July.

Title: Twin Falls County, Idaho. FSA (Farm Security Administration) workers' camp. Japanese farm workers
Creator(s): Lee, Russell, 1903-1986, photographer Date Created/Published: 1942 July.

This is the United States of America.  This is our history.