Collection contains the photographs of Hansel Mieth (1909-1998) and Otto Hagel (1909-1973).

Hansel Mieth (1909-1998) and Otto Hagel (1909-1973) were both born in Germany but immigrated to the United States in 1930 and 1928 respectively. Arriving in the midst of the Great Depression, the couple ended up finding work as farm laborers in rural California, experiencing firsthand the dismal living conditions of the migrant worker. Hagel and Mieth bought a used camera and started documenting the lives of the agricultural workers around them. Their photographs of cotton pickers and their families, of shanty towns ("Hoovervilles") around Sacramento, and of waterfront workers in San Francisco, established Mieth and Hagel as socially conscious documentary photographers.

2.95 Cubic Feet (5 oversize boxes)

Copyright has not been assigned to the Labor Archives and Research Center. All requests for permission to publish or quote from materials must be submitted in writing to the Director of the Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Labor Archives and Research Center as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

Collection is open for research.