Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) - Turpentine „chipper“ and slashed tree near Homerville, Georgia, July 1937

Turpentine „chipper“ and slashed tree near Homerville, Georgia, July 1937
Exhibition print from DOROTHEA LANGE - PHOTOGRAPHIEN, Galerie Bilderwelt, Berlin 1998
LC-DIG-fsa-8b32245 (digital file from original neg.)
In July 1937, legendary documentary photographer Dorothea Lange—while working for the Farm Security Administration (FSA)—traveled through the pine forests of southeast Georgia (including towns like DuPont and Valdosta) to document the turpentine industry.
While Lange is most famous for her Dust Bowl images and Migrant Mother, her visual documentation of the Southern naval stores (turpentine and rosin) industry captured a critically important, highly exploitative, and rapidly vanishing chapter of American economic and labor history.
1. Economic Importance of the Industry
• Global Dominance: In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the American South—led heavily by Georgia and Florida—was the global powerhouse for naval stores (producing turpentine and rosin from pine resin used to seal wooden ships, thin paints, and manufacture soap and chemicals).
• A Rural Economic Backbone: For a largely agrarian and economically devastated post-Reconstruction South, the turpentine industry was a massive source of employment and commercial output, anchoring rural economies throughout the coastal plain.
2. Labor Reality and Social Significance
By the time Lange photographed the turpentine camps in 1937, the industry was notorious for its brutal labor practices, which she exposed through her lens:
• Racialized Labor: The workforce was overwhelmingly African American, often comprising men (and sometimes their families) living in isolated, company-owned encampments.
• Forced Labor and Peonage: Many workers were trapped in cycles of debt peonage or managed through strict convict-lease and debt systems, where attempting to leave the camp could result in arrest. Lange’s photos captured the severe exhaustion, weathered board-and-batten shacks, and heavy supervision (such as her photograph Overseer in the Turpentine Woods).