Image: Midway City CA Dairy Association 1937f

Description: Dorothea Lange May 1937 photo of Henry Lotz closing the gate to the barns at the Midway City Dairy Association, a cooperative in Midway City, California, United States. Seven families having nine men on work relief obtained a loan of seven thousand eight hundred fifty dollars in June 1936 from the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal U.S. federal agency that, between April 1935 and December 1936, relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. The seven families used the money to rehabilitate the Midway City Dairy Association. "The plant was immediately renovated, and better equipment procured by trade. Bidding tactics of competitors were studied with all the zeal of poker experts, means of developing consumer cooperative markets were explained, and all plans laid to take full advantage of their new capital and condition as free producers in an open market."[1] This was the first loan by the Resettlement Administration to a self-help cooperative. In obtaining the loan, Henry Lotz noted, "This Resettlement loan, it's a future to us from the bidding platform for old age labor." The loans were payable in installments over a period of five years. From their earnings and wages, they met every payment when due. Rights Advisory: No known restrictions.
Title: Midway City CA Dairy Association 1937
Credit: loc.gov/pictures from photograph collection of the now defunct Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information
Author: Dorothea Lange
Permission: This image is a work of an employee of the United States Farm Security Administration or Office of War Information domestic photographic units, taken as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain in the United States. See Copyright.
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No