Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) - Country store on dirt road

Exhibition print from DOROTHEA LANGE - PHOTOGRAPHIEN, Galerie Bilderwelt, Berlin 1998 LC-USF34-T01-019911-E (b&w film dup. neg.) The photograph widely known as „Country Store on a Dirt Road“ was taken by Dorothea Lange in July 1939 during a comprehensive field trip through North Carolina. Working alongside university sociologists (such as Margaret Jarman Hagood and Harriet Herring) for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), Lange traveled across several counties (including Orange, Person, Chatham, Wake, Granville, Alamance, and Caswell) to document rural life, sharecropping, and agricultural labor during the Great Depression. During this North Carolina assignment, Lange took a vast collection of powerful photographs, focusing on themes such as: • Tobacco Farming and Farm Labor: North Carolina's rural economy was heavily tied to tobacco. Lange captured images of tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and farm children working or posing near tobacco barns, curing processes, and fields—such as a famous portrait of a young farm boy in the doorway of a Person County tobacco barn. • Rural Communities and Churches: In addition to the general store in Gordonton, she photographed local gatherings, filling stations, baseball teams, and Sunday services (such as a gathering outside Wheeley's Church in Person County). • Family and Domestic Life: She documented the living conditions of rural families, capturing images of sharecropper homes, families eating watermelon together outdoors, portraits of children, and daily domestic routines in the Piedmont region. • Small Towns: She also ventured into nearby towns like Pittsboro and Siler City (Chatham County), photographing local downtown streetscapes, storefronts, and courthouses.

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