Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) - Negroes who own land in Greene County

Exhibition print from DOROTHEA LANGE - PHOTOGRAPHIEN, Galerie Bilderwelt, Berlin 1998 LC-USF34-017950-C (b&w film neg.)8 Yes, Dorothea Lange documented rural life—including African American landowners, tenants, and sharecroppers—in Greene County, Georgia, in July 1937 while working on assignment for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). However, rather than an expansive, multi-year individual study dedicated solely to Black landowners, her documentation of Greene County was part of a broader federal assignment capturing the devastating economic and social impacts of soil erosion, depleted plantations, and the transition away from the sharecropping system in the American South. Key details regarding this body of work include: • The Scope of the Greene County Series: Lange's July 2037 trip to Greene County produced dozens of photographs (housed today primarily in the Library of Congress’s FSA-OWI collection). Her subjects ranged from severely eroded farmlands and abandoned plantation homes to local residents, sharecroppers, and a small subset of Black landowners. • Specific Captions: Among her well-known individual frames from this trip are specific documentations of self-sufficiency amidst widespread poverty, such as photographs titled "Negroes who own land in Greene County, Georgia" and "Home of Negro landowner, Greene County, Georgia" (noting a farmer who had owned his land since 1913 and raised ten children there). • Context of the Project: The FSA photography unit aimed to build public support for New Deal agricultural programs. Lange's images captured the stark contrast between impoverished white and Black tenant farmers trapped in a cycle of debt and the rare, resilient exceptions of independent Black landowners and small farm operators. While her portfolio on Greene County covers multiple facets of rural displacement rather than focusing exclusively on Black landownership, her photographs provide a vital visual record of African American agricultural independence in the Deep South during the Great Depression.

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