Projects
Photographers
Books

Log in

All rights to images belong to photographers and are used under fair use for non-commercial purposes. If you have any concerns, please contact us.

Explore

Projects
Photographers
Books

About

Our Mission
F.A.Q.

Connect

Contact Us
Submit Your Project
Donate

Policies

Copyright Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use

All rights to images belong to photographers and are used under fair use for non-commercial purposes. If you have any concerns, please contact us.

The Encyclopedia of Photography’s Art and History

"You Have Seen Their Faces", Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) | PhotoAnthology

You Have Seen Their Faces

Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971)

Human faces and living conditions in the American South during the Great Depression, capturing scenes of labor, poverty, and familial life.

Suggest an Edit

You Have Seen Their Faces

Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971)

Human faces and living conditions in the American South during the Great Depression, capturing scenes of labor, poverty, and familial life.

Mother Surrounded by Children, Dahlonega, Georgia, 1936

Elbow Creek, Arkansas
“My father doesn’t hire any field hands, or sharecroppers. He makes a lot of cotton, about sixty bales a year. Me and my brother stay home from school to work for him.”

Lansdale, Arkansas
"There comes a time when there's nothing to do except just sit."

Happy Hollow, Georgia “Sometimes I tell my husband we couldn't be worst of if we tried"

Hood’s Chapel, Georgia
“I reckon I was naturally born a black boy in the white man’s country.”

College Grove, Tennessee
“We've got a first-class God."

Marshall, Arkansas
“It never felt much like Sunday to me until I plucked the guitar some.”

East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
“Blackie ain't good for nothing, he’s just an old hound dog.”

Maiden Lane, Georgia
“A man learns not to expect much after he’s farmed cotton most of his life.”

Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia
“Every month the relief office gives them four cans of beef, a can of dried peas, and five dollars, and the old lady generally spends a dollar and a half of it for snuff.”

Ocelot, Georgia
“I got more children now than I know what to do with, but they keep coming along like water-
melons in the summertime.”

Yazoo City, Mississippi
“I think it’s only right that the government ought to be run with people like us in mind.”

Clinton, Louisiana
“I don’t know what ever happened to the family that built this house before the War. A lot of families live here now. My husband and me moved in and get two rooms for five dollars a month.”

Locket, Georgia
“It ain’t hardly worth the trouble to go on living"

Locket, Georgia
"I've done the best I knew how all my life, but it didn’t amount to much in the end.”

Books

The Photographs of Margaret Bourke-White

Bonanza Books, 1972

Margaret Bourke-White: Moments in History

D.A.P., 2013

Related Projects