During the 1930s, families around the country moved west in a desperate attempt to find work and make money. From farmers to oil workers to gold prospectors, families built makeshift homes wherever they could find employment, often digging them right out of the ground.
Taken by photographer Russell Lee, mostly showing Pie Town, New Mexico in 1940, these 22 photos document Americans at their most desperate and most resourceful.
1
Jack Whinery
A homesteader and his family, 1940.
2
Dugout Home
Pie Town, New Mexico.
3
Faro Caudill and Neighbor
Building a dugout. Pie Town, 1940.
4
Dugout Home
Owned by Faro and Doris Caudill.
5
Jack Whinery
In his dugout home in Pie Town, New Mexico.
6
A Pie Town Home
Dugout.
7
Children
Playing In front of a dugout, 1940.
8
Spanish-American Woman
Plastering an adobe house, Chamisal, New Mexico.
9
Eugene Davis
A gold prospector, “looking into the chest where he has stored his belongings.”
10
Mr. Leatherman
A homesteader and his barn.
11
Mrs. Faro Caudill
Packing up kitchen equipment near her pressure cooker.
12
Building an Adobe House
Chamisal, New Mexico.
13
A Temporary Home
Tie cutters, Pie Town, New Mexico, 1940.
14
Mrs. Jack Whinery
Making a fly swatter.
15
Making Bricks
A dirt, straw and water mixture, Chamisal, New Mexico, 1940.
16
Washing Her Hands
A girl in a dugout home.
17
An Adobe House
Pie Town, New Mexico.
18
Houses of Oil Field Workers
Hobbs, New Mexico.
19
Faro and Doris Caudill
With their daughter in their dugout home, 1940.
20
Mrs. George Hutton
Feeding her chickens in Pie Town.
21
Mr. Keele
“Filling the batteries in one of the two Delco systems in Pie Town, New Mexico.”
22
Mrs. Free in Her Doorway
Dead Ox Flat, Malheur County, Oregon, 1939.
