In 1939, Russell Lee, a photographer working for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), was in Kilgore, Texas, to document the lives of people living and working in the area. One of his main focuses was on the men working on the drilling rigs. The FSA was a New Deal agency established to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression. Lee was one of a group of photographers, including Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, who the FSA sent out to document everyday life in the United States.
The photographs Lee took in Kilgore show the harsh and dangerous conditions the men working on the drilling rigs had to endure. They depict men working long hours, often in dangerous and physically demanding conditions. Lee’s photographs also show the close-knit communities that developed around the oil drilling operations, with men living and working in close quarters and supporting one another.
In addition to the drilling rig photographs, Lee took photographs of the towns and communities surrounding the oil drilling operations. These photographs show the oil industry’s impact on the local economy and the people who lived there.
Lee’s photographs from Kilgore provide a glimpse into the lives of the men who worked in the oil industry during this period and the communities that formed around them. They are an important historical record of the people and places of Kilgore, Texas, during the 1930s and provide a unique perspective on the oil industry’s impact on the area.
