Sorting and Stringing Tobacco | History of SC Slide Collection

African-American and white boys work together stringing tobacco under the shade of the shed, near Marion. Sorting and stringing tobacco onto long poles was a preliminary step to curing it. Dorothea Lange reported of a sharecropping family near Hartsville that their 6 acres produced a crop in 1928 that sold for $900, of which they kept half. The $450 was their principal income for the entire year. 1930s photo from the Works Progress Administration.

Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.