Georgia Sharecroppers: Historic Photos Reveal an Era of Poverty and Hardship

Following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, landowners in the South were forced to find a new source of labor for their fields. They found a way to continue their cash crops by exploiting the poor, both black and white, as a source of cheap labor. Thus began the era of the sharecropper in Georgia.

Sharecroppers, pictured in 1910, harvest cotton in Randolph County, Georgia.Photo byEncyclopedia of Georgia (via Georgia archives, fair use)

Sharecroppers in Bulloch County Georgia tobacco fieldPhoto byEncyclopedia of Georgia (via Georgia archives, fair use)

The system of sharecropping was an agreement between a landowner and a farmer. The farmer's job was to cultivate a cash crop on the landowner's fields. In Georgia, this was often cotton or tobacco. After harvest, when the crop was sold, the farmer had to "share" the profits with the landowner. That's where the term "sharecropper" originated.

Sharecroppers house in Lowndes County, GeorgiaPhoto byEncyclopedia of Georgia (via Georgia archives, fair use)

Cotton sharecropper family, Macon, Georgia, 1937Photo byDorothea Lange (via Library of Congress)

Sharecroppers were often the poorest of the poor in the south, with no supplies or means to plant a crop. Often greedy landowners took advantage of their plight by supplying seeds, a mule, and a plow and then charging them exhorberant prices for these supplies out of their share of the profits.

Tobacco sharecropper's home near Douglas, Georgia, 1938Photo byDorothea Lange (via Library of Congress)

Cotton sharecropper family. Macon County, Georgia, 1937Photo byDorothea Lange (via Library of Congress)

Many sharecropping families were allowed to live on the land if there was any kind of house or shelter located there. This shelter was rarely free. At harvest, the sharecropper often had to pay a whole year's worth of rent. With the cost of supplies and shelter, these sharecroppers barely broke even. During a year with a poor harvest, the sharecropper often ended up indebted to the landowner and obligated to stay several more years. Sharecropping perpetuated a cycle of poverty.

Cotton sharecropper plowing the fields with a mule, Greene County, Georgia, 1937Photo byDorothea Lange (via Library of Congress)

Sharecropper family near Hazlehurst, Georgia with wagon and mule, 1937Photo byDorothea Lange (via Library of Congress)

Sharecropping was hard work for the entire family. In northwest Alabama, my great-grandparents were sharecroppers. My grandmother often told me stories when I was a child about her whole family working in the hot fields all day picking cotton. Even if they were young children, everyone in the sharecroppers family was expected to help with the work when the crop was ready to harvest. It was a matter of survival.

13 year old plowing fields near Americus, Georgia, 1937Photo byDorothea Lange (via Library of Congress)

Sharecropper and his boys near Hartwell, Georgia, 1937Photo byDorothea Lange (via Library of Congress)

The Great Depression brought added woes for the sharecropper. The price of cotton plummeted, and the federal government paid landowners to let large tracts of their land lie dormant in an attempt to raise the price of the crop. Many families were evicted at this time and forced to move to urban areas to find work. For the few who were still able to farm, low profits on their crops left them in more debt and poverty than ever.

Young sharecropper in Macon County, Georgia, 1937Photo byDorothea Lange (via Library of Congress)

Wife of sharecropper sorting tobacco leaves, near Douglass, Georgia, 1938Photo byDorothea Lange (via Library of Congress)

By WWII, sharecropping had mostly ended in the South. Many farmers had completely gone bankrupt during the Great Depression, and machinery was quickly replacing manual labor in the fields. Although the economic and social disparity between the wealthy landowners and dirt poor sharecroppers was one that would leave its effects for generations to come, the sheer will of these people to survive in such hard times is a legacy we should never forget.

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