"Uncle Sam Is My Shepherd" - the Georgia county the government tried to save, in color

Between 1937 and 1941 the federal government photographed one collapsing Georgia cotton county more than 1,600 times - Dorothea Lange in 1937, Marion Post Wolcott in 1939, and Jack Delano for most of 1941, shooting for the book 'Tenants of the Almighty.' A funeral attended by a convict chain gang, a CIO picket line in a Deep South mill…

Transcript

One book

[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Feet of a Negro farm woman, who together with two children runs a rented farm. Near Woodville, Greene County Georgia]

R138 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Feet of a Negro farm woman, who together with two children runs a rented farm. Near Woodville, Greene County Georgia]
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

In 1943, the Macmillan Company published a book about one county in Georgia. A sociologist wrote it. The photographs came from the United States government. This woman is Plate 17.

S3
Arthur Raper, 'Tenants of the Almighty' · Macmillan, 1943 · no (c) renewal found, CCE 1970-71.

The title page credits the pictures plainly: FSA photographs by Jack Delano. The FSA was the Farm Security Administration — the New Deal's farm-rescue agency — and this book was its report card.

S6
'Tenants of the Almighty' · endpaper map of Greene County · 1943.

The endpapers carry a hand-drawn map of Greene County — every church, every school, every dwelling a little ink square. This is the story of how a whole county ended up inside a book.

R022 General scene, main street. Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Three government photographers shot more than sixteen hundred frames here between 1937 and 1941. What you'll see is their work in color — but the colors are a machine's estimate, not a record. Every original is black and white, and free to see at the Library of Congress.

R021 Old courthouse. Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Where a dress or a sign or a field reads a little too bright, trust the shapes, not the shades. The captions are the photographers' own words, written in the field.

The collapse

S1
USDA Farm Security Administration · 'Greene County, Georgia' · 1940 · p.1.

In 1940, the Farm Security Administration typed up its own account of the place. "The Story of One Southern County." It reads like a autopsy report.

S2
USDA Farm Security Administration · 'Greene County, Georgia' · 1940 · p.2.

Page two has the numbers. Twenty thousand and thirty bales of cotton in 1919. Then the boll weevil. Three years later — three hundred and thirty-three bales. One bank in the grey-land section survived.

R013 Eroded land. Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · May 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

By the government's own accounting, half the land in the county had been abandoned by 1930. Sixteen thousand acres had been sold for taxes. For a short period, wild rabbits flourished on the empty fields — one year, Greene County exported more rabbits than any county in the United States.

1937 — Dorothea Lange

R007 Land cut over by lumber company and not replanted. Greene County, Georgia.
Dorothea Lange · July 1937 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

In July 1937, Dorothea Lange drove through. She had just photographed the Dust Bowl. What she found here was quieter, and older.

Standing chimneys are a common sight in Greene County. They often stand in gullied fields indicating where a plantation house once stood. Georgia

R009 Standing chimneys are a common sight in Greene County. They often stand in gullied fields indicating where a plantation house once stood. Georgia
Dorothea Lange · July 1937 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Her caption: "Standing chimneys are a common sight in Greene County. They often stand in gullied fields indicating where a plantation house once stood."

R008 Decaying antebellum plantation. Greene County, Georgia
Dorothea Lange · July 1937 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"Decaying antebellum plantation."

R004 Ex-slave and wife who live in a decaying plantation house. Greene County, Georgia
Dorothea Lange · July 1937 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"Ex-slave and wife who live in a decaying plantation house." Lange did not record their names. They had outlived the world that enslaved them, and were now outliving the one that replaced it.

R006 The cotton sharecropper's unit is one mule and the land he can cultivate with a one-horse plow. Greene County, Georgia
Dorothea Lange · July 1937 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"The cotton sharecropper's unit is one mule and the land he can cultivate with a one-horse plow."

R002 Home of Negro landowner, Greene County, Georgia. This man has owned his land since 1913. He has raised ten children here
Dorothea Lange · July 1937 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

There were exceptions, and she photographed them too. The home of a Black landowner — her caption notes he had owned his land since 1913, and raised ten children on it.

R010 Southern lady of the old school on veranda of the "Big House" at the Wray Plantation, Georgia
Dorothea Lange · July 1937 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And on the veranda of the Wray Plantation's big house — her caption says — "Southern lady of the old school." Two Greene Counties, a few miles apart.

1939 — Marion Post Wolcott

R011 Abandoned plantation house. Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · May 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Two years later the government sent Marion Post Wolcott to photograph the bottom.

The William Armour place, three or four thousand acres, Negro family now living in it. "It goes over, slap over to the crick." They pay one bale of cotton for rent. Green

R012 The William Armour place, three or four thousand acres, Negro family now living in it. "It goes over, slap over to the crick." They pay one bale of cotton for rent. Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · May 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"The William Armour place. Three or four thousand acres." A Black family was living in it now, her caption notes — paying one bale of cotton a year in rent, for a house that once ran a plantation.

R018 Soil erosion and remaining chimney of house. Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · April 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"Eroded land." The gullies were deep enough to swallow a wagon. This is what sixty years of cotton did to the Piedmont.

R016 Old family individual graveyard. Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · May 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

A family graveyard, fenced, in the middle of an empty field. The farm that surrounded it was gone.

R019 Colored tenant farmer carrying home a sack of flour which he calls "heaven dust." Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · April 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

A Black tenant farmer carrying home a sack of flour — which, her caption records, he called "heaven dust."

R020 Signs on tree along highway. Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · April 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

On a tree along the highway, one sign asked: "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" The sign nailed under it sold fertilizer.

The experiment

R024 FSA (Farm Security Administration) supervisor inspecting rehabilitation borrower's mule, Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · May 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

But Wolcott also photographed something new. Her caption: "FSA supervisor inspecting rehabilitation borrower's mule."

R025 FSA (Farm Security Administration) supervisor H.M. West looking over home garden of Henry and Mary Mitchell, clients. Greene County, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · May 1939 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

In 1938, Washington had picked Greene County for something that had never been tried — every farm agency of the federal government, working one county at a time, together. They called it the Unified Farm Program.

S5
USDA Farm Security Administration · 'Greene County, Georgia' · 1940 · p.12.

Loans for mules and seed and fences. Nurses visiting every family. Two hundred forty wells improved, two hundred twenty-five houses screened against mosquitoes in eighteen months — malaria was still a constant threat here in 1939.

1941 — Jack Delano

R026 Mr. Henry Brooks, ex-slave. Parks Ferry Road, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

In May 1941, the government's photographer arrived to stay. Jack Delano was twenty-six, a Jewish immigrant born in Ukraine, nine years old when his family reached America. The sociologist Arthur Raper was writing his second book on Greene County, and Washington sent Delano to picture it.

R029 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Hands of Mr. Henry Brooks, ex-slave. Parks Ferry Road, Greene County, Georgia]
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

This is Mr. Henry Brooks of Parks Ferry Road. Delano's caption is two words long: "ex-slave."

R030 Hands of Mr. Henry Brooks, ex-slave. Parks Ferry Road, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"Hands of Mr. Henry Brooks, ex-slave." The book printed this frame full-page. Its caption there: "The Hands of an Ex-Slave, in Linger Longer Area."

R027 "Grandma Lawrence" had lived on Mercer Reynolds plantation for many years. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"Grandma Lawrence had lived on Mercer Reynolds plantation for many years."

R032 An early deed to some land bought in Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And Delano photographed paper. "An early deed to some land bought in Greene County" — the wax seal still on it. In this county, the distance between a deed and a life was never far.

Two funerals

R034 At a funeral of a member of an old Green County family, the Boswells, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

That May, Delano photographed two funerals. The first was for a member of the Boswells, one of the county's old families.

R035 At a funeral of a member of an old Green County family, the Boswells, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

The second funeral was for the warden of the county convict camp, killed in an automobile accident.

R001 Convicts from the Greene County prison camp at the funeral of their warden who was killed in an automobile accident, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

The men who came to bury him were his prisoners. Delano's caption: "Convicts from the Greene County prison camp at the funeral of their warden."

R039 Convicts from the Greene County prison camp at the funeral of their warden who was killed in an automobile accident, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

They stood at the graveside in their stripes, guarded, bareheaded, in the Georgia sun.

R040 Convicts from the Greene County prison camp at the funeral of their warden who was killed in an automobile accident, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

No one in the pictures explains what they felt. The camera just stays.

May Day

R041 At the May Day pageant in Siloam, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

The same month, in Siloam — population a few hundred — the schools put on a May Day pageant.

R043 At the May Day pageant in Siloam, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Farm children in homemade wings, on a pasture stage.

R046 At the May Day pageant in Siloam, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

A year of debt, quotas and gullied fields — and one afternoon of angels.

The strike

R047 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Pickets outside a textile mill in Greensboro, Green County, Georgia]
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And that same May, something happened that doesn't fit the postcard. The workers at the textile mill in Greensboro walked out.

R048 Pickets outside a textile mill in Greensboro, Green County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Delano photographed the picket line. The signs read "Unionism is Americanism" —

R050 Pickets outside a textile mill in Greensboro, Green County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

— and "The U.S. Gov't is behind us 100%." In 1941, in a Deep South mill town, they believed it.

R053 CIO pickets jeering at few workers who were entering a mill in Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

His caption: "CIO pickets jeering at few workers who were entering a mill."

R055 CIO pickets outside a mill in Greensboro pose for their picture. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"CIO pickets outside a mill in Greensboro pose for their picture."

The mill

R058 At the Mary-Leila cotton mill in Greensboro, Georgia
Jack Delano · October 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

When Delano came back in the fall, he photographed the same mill from the inside. The Mary-Leila cotton mill, Greensboro.

R056 Union meeting of textile workers in Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · November 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And in November, he photographed the union meeting — indoors now, orderly, with officers at the table. The strike had become an institution.

Saturday

R066 Going to town on Saturday afternoon. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Saturday afternoon was the county's one appointment. "Going to town on Saturday afternoon."

R067 Negro farmers shopping on Saturday afternoon in Liebowitz's store. Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Black farmers shopping on Saturday afternoon in Liebowitz's store, Greensboro.

R072 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: The new movie house in Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia]
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And after dark, the new movie house in Greensboro — neon in a county that had exported rabbits ten years before.

The government's county

R074 Mr. Lloyd Lewis, Greene County ordinary, in his office in Greensboro, Georgia
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Delano also photographed the machinery of the experiment itself. The county courthouse crowd: Mr. Lloyd Lewis, the county ordinary.

R076 The staff of the Greene County Health Department. Greensboro, Georgia
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

The staff of the Greene County Health Department — nurses the program paid for.

R083 At a cooperative prenatal clinic near Woodville. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

A cooperative prenatal clinic near Woodville. By the program's plan, every expectant mother was visited once a month for six months, twice a month after that.

R082 At a meeting of Negro FSA (Farm Security Administration) borrowers in a church near Woodville. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

At a church near Woodville, a meeting of Black FSA borrowers. The government held its office hours in the pews.

One of the chicks delivered at the Greensboro depot in connection with the FSA (Farm Security Administration) Food for Defense program. Greene County, Georgia

R079 One of the chicks delivered at the Greensboro depot in connection with the FSA (Farm Security Administration) Food for Defense program. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Baby chicks, delivered by rail to the Greensboro depot — the caption says — "in connection with the FSA Food for Defense program."

R086 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia (vicinity). Terracing a farm]
Jack Delano · October 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Machines cut terraces across the gullied fields — the first serious attempt to stop the land itself from leaving.

R080 The new Saint Paul's school house for Negroes being built near Siloam, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And near Siloam, a new school building going up: Saint Paul's, for Black children, replacing a one-room church school.

Boyd Jones

R089 Boyd Jones coming to school at the Alexander community center, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · November 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Delano followed one student all fall. His name was Boyd Jones.

R092 Boyd Jones helping his teacher at the Alexander community school for colored children. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · October 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Boyd Jones helping his teacher at the Alexander community school — one of the county's Black schools.

R093 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Boyd Jones driving into Greensboro for Saturday afternoon. Greene County, Georgia]
Jack Delano · October 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Saturday: "Boyd Jones driving into Greensboro."

R094 Boyd Jones and one of his friends coming back with their dogs from a trip into the woods. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · November 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"Boyd Jones and one of his friends coming back with their dogs from a trip into the woods."

R095 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Boyd Jones riding one of his father's mules on their farm in Greene County, Georgia]
Jack Delano · November 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And on his father's farm, on a mule, in November. When Raper's book came out, Boyd was in it — the whole second half of the picture section follows his world.

School

R096 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Siloam, Greene County, Georgia. Singing class in a Negro school]
Jack Delano · October 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

The schools Boyd's county offered were two systems wearing one name. A singing class in a Black school in Siloam —

R099 Five-cent hot lunches at the Woodville public school. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

The program's answer was small and practical: hot lunches at the Woodville public school, five cents a plate.

R101 At the outdoor graduation of the Union Point high school. Union Point, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And in June, the outdoor graduation of Union Point high school, the whole town on benches in the dark.

R088 Mr. Floyd Corry, Superintendent of Schools in Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"I want the schools to teach our people how to live better here," the superintendent, Floyd T. Corry, says in the book. Delano photographed him at his desk.

The convict camp

R102 At the convict camp in Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

The county had one more institution, and Delano did not look away from it.

R104 At the convict camp in Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"At the convict camp in Greene County, Georgia." Barred windows in a wooden barrack.

R105 In the convict camp in Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Supper in stripes, at long tables.

R107 A prisoner dancing while another plays the guitar at a prison camp. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And one frame the book printed with a caption of its own: "A Convict Dances for a Dime."

R108 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: In the convict camp in Greene County, Georgia]
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

The book printed the camp between the midwife and the landowner. That was the point of the book — all of it was the same county.

Harvest

R109 Bringing a wagonload of cotton in to the gin, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · October 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

October. "Bringing a wagonload of cotton in to the gin." Cotton hadn't died — it had shrunk to something a county could survive.

R116 Entrance to the Greene County fair in Greensboro, Georgia
Jack Delano · October 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

The Greene County fair came to Greensboro with a monkey circus and a ferris wheel.

R119 At the Greene County fair, Greensboro, Georgia. White schoolchildren were admitted free one day, Negro schoolchildren the next
Jack Delano · October 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Delano's caption records how admission worked — in the language of 1941, quoted as he wrote it: "White schoolchildren were admitted free one day, Negro schoolchildren the next."

One thousand cans

R110 Greene County, Georgia. Canned goods put up by a Negro FSA (Farm Security Administration) family
Jack Delano · October 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

What the program measured itself by wasn't the fair. It was pantries. Canned goods put up by a Black FSA family.

[Untitled photo, possibly related to: FSA (Farm Security Administration) family with the 1000 cans of fruit, vegetables, etc. they have canned for the winter. Near White Plains, Gr

R114 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: FSA (Farm Security Administration) family with the 1000 cans of fruit, vegetables, etc. they have canned for the winter. Near White Plains, Greene County, Georgia]
Jack Delano · November 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Near White Plains, Delano photographed a family with — the caption counts it — "the 1,000 cans of fruit, vegetables, etc. they have canned for the winter."

R115 Mrs. Buck Grant FSA (Farm Security Administration) client, with her canned goods. Near Woodville, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · November 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"Mrs. Buck Grant, FSA client, with her canned goods, near Woodville." Before the program, the government's survey put the average borrower family's home-grown food at ninety-three dollars a year. After: two hundred.

The old people

R126 Mr. and Mrs. Wilks, FSA (Farm Security Administration) clients near Union Point, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · November 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

The program reached the old people last, and mattered to them most. Mr. and Mrs. Wilks, FSA clients near Union Point.

R130 Greene County, Georgia. Old couple who receive old-age pension assistance
Jack Delano · 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

An old couple photographed beside their bed, their clock, their papered wall. A pension check was the first cash some of these households had ever counted on.

The widow

[Untitled photo, possibly related to: Negro tenant farm woman. A widow. She runs the farm with the help of two children. FSA (Farm Security Administration) client. Greene County, G

R141 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Negro tenant farm woman. A widow. She runs the farm with the help of two children. FSA (Farm Security Administration) client. Greene County, Georgia]
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Delano kept returning to one farm near Woodville. A widow, running a rented farm with her two children. He never recorded her name.

R140 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Feet of a Negro farm woman, who together with two children runs a rented farm. Near Woodville, Greene County Georgia]
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And then he knelt and photographed her feet. His caption: the feet of a farm woman who, with two children, runs a rented farm.

S4
'Tenants of the Almighty' · Plate 17 · photo Jack Delano · 1943.

Stockings worn through at the ankle, on swept earth. The book ran her portrait full-page as Plate 17: "Farm Tenant Mother near Woodville."

The poem

S8
'Tenants of the Almighty' p.270 · poem by Louisiana Dunn Thomas, printed by her permission, 1943.

Beside her picture, the book printed a poem. It was written by a different Greene County woman — Louisiana Dunn Thomas of Siloam, a tenant farm mother of thirteen children, a fifth-grade education, and a notebook.

R132 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Wife and child of a tenant farmer in northern Greene County, Georgia]
Jack Delano · June 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

"Uncle Sam is my shepherd, and I shall not want. He help me to care for my children, and raise all my food if I don't." Raper printed it by her permission, and took his title from her closing lines. If Delano ever photographed her, no caption says so.

What happened

R133 Parks Ferry across the Oconee River is still running, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · November 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

In November 1941, Delano photographed Parks Ferry, still crossing the Oconee on its cable, as it had for a century.

R135 Railroad tracks, Greene County, Georgia. Across the Oconee river
Jack Delano · November 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

And the railroad, running straight out of the county toward everything that was about to happen.

R057 Union meeting of textile workers in Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · November 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Weeks later, Pearl Harbor. The war took the program's money, its staff, and its tenants — to the Army, and to the defense plants in Atlanta. The Unified Farm Program never got its second decade.

S7
'Tenants of the Almighty' · Plate 9, 'Planting Cotton' · photo Jack Delano · 1943.

The book came out in 1943 and told the truth anyway: the government's own survey said borrower families had nearly doubled their net income — from one hundred thirty-one dollars a year to two hundred forty-six. Numbers that small, and worth a book that big.

R087 [Untitled photo, possibly related to: Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia (vicinity). Terracing on a farm]
Jack Delano · October 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Sixteen hundred negatives went into the file in Washington. A county that was dying got photographed more completely than any place in Georgia — because for four years, somebody in the government believed it could be saved.

R068 Saturday afternoon crowds in Siloam. Greene County, Georgia
Jack Delano · May 1941 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI · AI-colorized. View the original.

Every photograph in this film is in the FSA/OWI collection at the Library of Congress, free, at full resolution, in the original black and white. The colors here are machine estimates — the faces are real. If your people were in Greene County then, some of these faces may be yours.

Sources

FSA/OWI photograph collection, Library of Congress. All photographs are Jack Delano (May–Nov. 1941), Dorothea Lange (July 1937) or Marion Post Wolcott (spring 1939), Greene County, Ga. Each is public domain as a federal work; per-frame LOC item links are in the episode's exhibit register. Colorization is by a machine-learning model (DDColor); the colors are estimates, not records. Originals: loc.gov/pictures (search "Greene County Georgia", collection FSA/OWI).
U.S. Farm Security Administration, *Green County, Georgia (The Story of One Southern County)*, 1940. Public-domain federal document. archive.org/details/greencountygeorg1940unit — source of the collapse and program figures quoted (cotton bales 1919/1922, land and property values, wells/screening counts, borrower income survey).
Arthur F. Raper, *Tenants of the Almighty*, Macmillan, 1943 (FSA photographs by Jack Delano). archive.org/details/tenantsofalmight00rape. No copyright renewal found in the Catalog of Copyright Entries, Books, 1970–71 (searched Jan–June/Jul–Dec volumes, both years, archive.org scans); both HathiTrust copies are marked Full view. Source of the plate captions quoted, the Floyd T. Corry quotation (Plate 52), and the poem.
Louisiana Dunn Thomas, "Uncle Sam Is My Shepherd," printed by her permission in *Tenants of the Almighty*, Bk. III p. 270; her biography is Raper's Appendix 15.
Arthur Raper's earlier county study, *Preface to Peasantry* (1936), is under copyright and was consulted only as context; nothing is reproduced from it.

Documents shown

87 document images are reproduced on this page. Exhibits not reproduced here are cited in full under Sources.