An Arizona Migratory Cotton Worker

Dust, Drought, Depression, and War No. 6

Working for the U.S. Farm Security Administration (FSA) from 1935 to 1940, Dorothea Lange was one of the greatest documentary photographers of depression-era America.  In 1940, shortly after leaving FSA, Lange was appointed Head Photographer for the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE)¹, working for a year traveling across California and Arizona.  Her BAE photos, many published in print publications, were meant to bring American public attention to the plight of agricultural workers such as migrants, sharecroppers, farmers, and farmworkers whose hardship was largely unknown.²

One of those photos was later printed as Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona and At the cotton wagon, migrant agricultural worker, Eloy, Arizona.  Prints of this photo reside in numerous museums and art galleries³ and have sold for very respectable sums⁴. The image appeared in a seminal 1962 exhibition, The Bitter Years, curated by Edward Steichen⁵. The show featured 209 images by photographers who worked under the umbrella of the Farm Security Administration—part of Roosevelt’s New Deal—in 1935-41. A 2012 art book, edited by Françoise Poos, titled The Bitter Years: Edward Steichen and the Farm Security Administration Photographs, includes images from the exhibit and essays on the FSA, its legacy and impact as well as the impact of Steichen.  The book’s cover photo is Lange’s Migratory Cotton Picker.^{6, 7}

I recognized the subject portrayed in the photo when I came across three images of him while browsing Dorothea Lange images online in the National Archives. I had previously used the image in an uncompleted blog project titled, The Bitter Years.⁸ One of the images—third image below—I found in the Archives was an uncropped version of the photo Lange used for Migratory Cotton Picker.

Another image of the subject in a similar pose wearing a hat can be found at Oakland Museum of California.  The location is given as Eloy, Arizona in 1940 and described as “Migratory cotton picker with his sack slung over his shoulder rests at the scales before returning to work in the field.”⁹

While some online sites claim that their version is protected by copyright, the original image was taken as part of Lange’s employment with the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), a unit of the Department of Agriculture and is, thus, a work of the U.S. Government and, as such, not subject to copyright restrictions.

1. In 1922, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE)…  was established by the merger of the Office of Farm Management and Farm Economics and the Bureau of Markets and Crop Estimates, bringing together responsibility for data collection and economic research/analysis in a single agency. This new agency brought together for the first time in data collection and economic analysis and research.
   • “Economic Research Service.” Wikipedia. last edited May 30, 2021. Accessed August 16, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Research_Service.
2. “Dorothea Lange – Migratory Cotton Worker, Eloy, Arizona, 1940: Photographs New YORK Monday, March 31, 2014 Lot 47.” Phillips Auctioneers, LLC. Accessed August 16, 2021. https://www.phillips.com/detail/dorothea-lange/NY040114/47.
3. Museums and Galleries:
   • Museum of Modern Art,
   • Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,
   • National Gallery of Art,
   • Oakland Museum of California (this one is actually from a film negative and the the image is reversed from the normal prints)
   • Yale University Art Gallery
   • Museum of Contemporary Photography
4. Print sales
   • Christie’s (Closed, October 9, 2017) $200,000, Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona, annotated ‘BAE 332’ on back
   • Christies (Closed April 10, 2008) $49,000, At the cotton wagon, migrant agricultural worker, Eloy, Arizona, print made in the 1950
5. Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography. Steichen was credited with transforming photography into an art form.
   • “Edward Steichen.” Wikipedia, last edited August 12, 2021. Accessed August 16, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Steichen.
6. “The Bitter Years: Edward Steichen and the Farm Security Administration Photographs.”| ARTBOOK 9781935202868. D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, September 30, 2012. Accessed August 16, 2021 https://www.artbook.com/9781935202868.html.
7. Originally priced $60, I found a copy online said to be in very good condition and ordered it.  With shipping and handling, it was about $15, and should be here in one to three weeks.
8. Goad, Mike. “Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona–The Bitter YEARS 005.” Exit78, September 5, 2016. https://exit78.com/migratory-cotton-picker-eloy-arizona-the-bitter-years-005/.
9. “Dorothea Lange: Omca Eloy, Arizona.” Dorothea Lange Digital Archive | OMCA: Oakland Museum of CA, June 24, 2020. Accessed August 16, 2021. https://dorothealange.museumca.org/image/eloy-arizona/A67.137.40059.4/?section=in-the-fields.