Benefits of Farm Security Administration | History of SC Slide Collection

The Farm Security Administration, a part of the Department of Agriculture, carried out a number of projects to help rural Americans improve their lives. These projects ranged from helping to combat erosion to teaching farm women safe canning and food preparation skills. This sharecropper's wife, in the vicinity of Gaffney, displays her jars of canned produce on the front step of her house. The FSA also took a leading role in documenting the impact of the Depression. Its photographic services branch sent some of the nation's best photographers into rural areas. Dorothy Lange, who took this photograph, noted that "The farmer does a little day labor for his landlord for which he received 50 cts. a day in 1936 and 60 and 75 cts. a day in 1937."

Courtesy of the Library of Congress.