Jack Whinery and His Family

This is Jack Whinery and his family, people who lived in a Pie-Town (New Mexico) dugout home.  Russell Lee took the picture - part of the "Bound for Glory" exhibition - in October of 1940.  At the time, mothers often used feed sacks to make their children's clothes.

When homesteaders, like the Whinerys, moved to Pie Town they had to make their own farming tools.  Documenting what he saw, Russell Lee took pictures of a homesteader's life:

"In the early days we made our own farming tools," an old settler told Lee.  "We've made our own plows; constructed harrows by driving spikes through piñon poles tied together.  We used burros a lot for power."  Lee photographed one homesteader, Jack Whinery, who still plowed walking behind a plow he made by hand, which was pulled by two burros.  (American Photography and the American Dream, by James Guimond, page 132.)

Some Pie Town residents, who'd been homesteaders for a longer time, used a two-wheeled riding plow pulled by two horses. Still others:

...used a cut-down truck as a tractor to pull their plow - one drove the truck while the other sat on the riding plow.  (Guimond, page 132.)

Life, for Pie Town families, was not easy.

Click on the image for a much better view.

Credits

Image 22 (of 70) included in the Exhibition, "Bound for Glory," online courtesy Library of Congress.  The LOC describes this reproduction, from a color slide, as follows:

Russell Lee. Jack Whinery, homesteader, and his family. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. LC-USF351-319. LC-DIG-fsac-1a34098. FSA/OWI Collection. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Quoted passages from American Photography and the American Dream, by James Guimond.