The Great Depression hit all of America hard, but it hit Oklahoma with exceptional severity. Farming took a big hit from not only the Dust Bowls but from flooding as well. Rural Oklahomans, who numbered 1.5 million, saw farm income fall 64 percent in the 1930s. Tenant farmers made up more than 60 percent of the farming population during this era. And although times were tough, these farmers made a living and made it through one of the toughest times in the Sooner State. These 19 rare photos depict what things looked like for these farmers between 1936-1943 in Oklahoma (original captions included):

  1. This farm was badly blown from soil drifts in Cimarron County, Oklahoma. Photo taken in 1936.

Photogrammar/Arthur Rothstein

  1. This farmer is removing drifts of soil which block the highways near Guymon, Oklahoma, taken in 1936.

Photogrammar/Arthur Rothstein

  1. Stripping sweet corn from the stalk on a farm near Muskogee, Oklahoma. 1939.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. This farmer took the roof off his barn to make a windbreak for his garden. There was no rain. Taken in 1936 in Cimarron County.

Photogrammar/Arthur Rothstein

  1. A corn grinder on a tenant’s farm near Warner, Oklahoma in 1939.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. This farmer is pumping water from a well to his parched fields. A possible solution to the dust problem was irrigation. 1936.

Photogrammar/Arthur Rothstein

  1. Farm landscape near the Iva vicinity. 1943.

Jack Delano/Photogrammar

  1. Agricultural day laborers picking string beans in a field near Muskogee, Oklahoma. 1939.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. Landscape in Oklahoma showing a man plowing in a cotton field in the background, and the profile of the soil showing easily erodible structure in the foreground. Taken in 1939, near Warner.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. An old steam tractor on an indian’s farm in McIntosh County, Oklahoma. 1939.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. Cutting a field of alfalfa with tractor-drawn equipment near Prague, Oklahoma. 1939.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. A chicken house made of burlap sacks on a tenant farmer’s place near Sallisaw, Oklahoma. 1939.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. These farmers are taking a lunch break in Sallisaw. Taken in 1939.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. An abandoned tenant farmhouse in a field of cotton in Wagoner County, Oklahoma. 1939.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. The son of tenant farmer adjusting the spike-tooth harrow out on the farm. Taken in Muskogee in 1939.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. This tenant farmer is loading melons and vegetables on his truck for delivery into the market in Muskogee.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. A drought-stricken farmer and his family near Muskogee. 1939.

Dorothy Lange/Photogrammar

  1. A vegetable stand at the side of the highway on the farm of Pomp Hall, a tenant farmer in Creek County. 1940.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

  1. Farmland in McIntosh County, Oklahoma. This county had one of the worst eroded lands in the state. 1940.

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

These rare photos are available through the Yale photogrammar project. The photos were taken between 1935-1945. Which photo was your favorite?

Photogrammar/Arthur Rothstein

Russell Lee/Photogrammar

Jack Delano/Photogrammar

Dorothy Lange/Photogrammar

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