Mrs. L.L. LeCompt stitching quilt squares together. She does all her family sewing. Coffee County, Alabama

Marion Post Wolcott, Coffee County, Alabama, 1939

Marion Post Wolcott posed Mrs. L.L. LeCompt at her sewing machine, with examples of her handiwork—both clothing and patchwork—as props nearby. “She does all the family sewing,” Wolcott writes, again demonstrating the self-sufficiency of the subject. Of course, it’s not unusual for the woman of the house to be responsible for the family’s sewing during this era, regardless of economic downturn. It is still the transition time between Americans as producers and Americans as consumers, and home sewing with factory made cloth exemplifies the reality that many families did both.