"The sharecropper" ca. 1920
Image of an elderly African American man, sitting with an object in his hands. He is bald and has a white beard. He is looking at his the object in his hands.
"When the United States entered World War I in 1917, large numbers of African Americans in southern states were sharecroppers. White Americans, particularly in the South, were reluctant to shift their views of black Americans and sought ways to continue exploiting the labor of African descended people while remaining privileged.
From sunup to sundown, day in and day out, black Americans worked land that made landowners rich, while they went further into debt. As sharecroppers, they rented farming plots from landlords and bought supplies from merchants on credit.
At the end of each season, they often found they owed landlords and merchants more than they had earned. Sharecropping functioned as a debt-bonded labor system that contributed to a deepening racial divide."
-Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
Title of Photograph: "The sharecropper"
ca. 1920
Photographer: Cornelius M. Battey (1873–1927)
Medium: gelatin silver print
Size: 20 x 17.1 cm. (7.9 x 6.7 in.)
Image description: Image of an elderly African American man, sitting with an object in his hands. He is bald and has a white beard. He is looking at his the object in his hands.