Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

One of Russell Lee's 1937 images of life in Michigan's rural western Upper Peninsula, on the "cut-over" land -- where the pine forests had been felled. In this image, an Iron County farmer and his son play fiddles to the tune of "The Arkansas Traveler." The original caption for the photo notes that the son is playing a fiddle he made himself.

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By Emily Bingham | ebingham@mlive.com

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IRON COUNTY, MICH. -- The weather was typical for late March in Michigan's western Upper Peninsula -- signs of spring but still plenty of snow -- when photographer Russell Lee rolled into Iron County, camera in hand, in 1937.

Employed by the Farm Security Administration, an agency created under Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to fight rural poverty, Lee had been sent to the U.P. on assignment: To document the lives and landscapes in the "cut-over" parts of Michigan and Wisconsin, where the region's rich pine forests had been demolished by logging.

At that time, many Americans were still struggling to recover from the Great Depression, but this part of Michigan had been hit especially hard by economic challenges: mines had shuttered after a copper market collapse, entire towns had dried up as residents left to find work in urban areas, and the land, having been stripped of its timber, was reduced to great barren swaths of soil that couldn't sustain farming.

"There was just no effort at conservation or anything like that. They just went in, and cut it all, and it was as they call it, the cut-over land," Lee recalled in a 1964 interview for the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art. "... Except the pine land, invariably, is very shallow and sandy, and is not good for cultivation of any crop. So the 'cut-over' people had an awful time up there."

Lee spent several months with Iron County families, squatters, and "single shackers" who had taken up on that cut-over land. He also documented everyday life at a former logging camp at Hagerman Lake, which the state had converted into a "transient camp" for unemployed men, including former lumberjacks and miners.

The result of Lee's time in the U.P. is a body of work that gives us a window into a very particular time and place in Michigan history -- including faces that would have been long forgotten but now are preserved forever as part of the Library of Congress' prints and photographs collection. What follows in this gallery is a selection of images from Lee's 1937 U.P. trip, with the photos' original, minimalist captions, presumably in Lee's own words.

Lee's shots are sobering, to be sure, and his portraiture is particularly arresting. It could be said that his photos of Iron County children, in particular, are reminiscent of work by his Farm Security Administration colleague, documentary photographer Dorothea Lange (who captured the now-iconic photo "Migrant Mother" while on a similar assignment in California one year before Lee's trip to Michigan).

Incidentally, Iron County was just one of several Michigan locations where the Farm Security Administration sent photographers: Over less than a decade, the FSA also documented U.P. mining towns, migrant farming communities in the southwest Lower Peninsula, everyday life in WWII-era Detroit, and even the 1937 United Auto Workers sit-down strike at General Motors' Flint plant.

MLive will be sharing looks at other FSA documentary projects in Michigan in the weeks to come.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

John Nygren who lives alone in a shack near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

John Nygren and his dog Prince. Nygren lives alone in a shack near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

John Nygren sitting in front of his shack near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Buckboard Charlie, a squatter near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Buckboard Charlie's outhouse. Near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Home of Buckboard Charlie, squatter near Iron River, Michigan. Spring yard cleaning has just taken place.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Machinery and other property of Buckboard Charlie. Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Bed in Buckboard Charlie's cabin near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Buckboard Charlie in his shack near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Buckboard Charlie reading the American Legion monthly in the living room of his shack near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Signboard on land near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

The forest of Crystal Falls School. Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Lon Allen, farmer of the cut-over area near Iron River, Michigan, feeding a chicken in his bedroom. Last winter a cow was brought into the house to keep it from freezing

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Mrs. Lon Allen stirring the soup in her home near Iron River, Michigan. May 1937

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Chicken house and home of Lon Allen, farmer near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Ethel Allen, daughter of Lon Allen, standing in front of the family home. Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Privy on Lon Allen's farm near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Shack occupied by parents of Lon Allen. Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Son and daughter of Lon Allen's loading firewood on the trailer for delivery to the customer. Near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Lon Allen and daughter sawing log on farm near Iron River. It is a common practice for both sexes to work together in operations on the farm.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Lon Allen, farmer of the cut-over regions near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Lon Allen, former lumberjack, now a cut-over farmer, demonstrates how cooks used horn to call jacks to dinner. Near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Sando Evanoff, farmer of the cut-over regions, Iron County, Michigan, tending a fire of brushings [sic] from the land being cleaned.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Home of Sando Evanoff, farmer of the cut-over regions. Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Abandoned house on the road between Iron River, Michigan, and Tipler, Wisconsin.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Cut-over farm in Iron County, Michigan. The dried grass has been burned, as is customary among farmers in the spring. This is a doubtful practice because of damage to the humus of the soil.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Black Aleck Dickinson and his dog Snoop. Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Black Aleck Dickinson, single shacker. Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

John Bastia, a former lumberjack and coal miner, now a single shacker in Iron County, Michigan. He speaks only Italian, is deaf.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Shack occupied by Mr. Bastia, an unmarried shacker in Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

John Bastia doing his washing. He is a single shacker from Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

John Bastia doing his washing. He is a single shacker from Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

John Bastia hanging up his laundry. He is a single shacker in Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Barnyard of William Shanard, cut-over farmer in Michigan. Note portable sawmill made from a model-T Ford engine on sled.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

One of William Shanard's seven children. Shanard is a farmer of the cut-over regions in Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Interior of William Shanard's home. Shanard is a farmer of the cut-over regions. Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Son of William Shanard, cut-over farmer, near Silk Lake, Michigan, rolling a cigarette.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

William Shanard, cut-over farmer near Silk Lake, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Mrs. William Shanard and one of her children. Her husband has been a farmer of the cut-over regions for years, but cannot make a living at it. The family is on relief. Near Silk Lake, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

One of William Sharrard's children in the doorway of their home near Silk Lake, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

The living room of Sherman Ritchie's shack near Iron River, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Removing stones on [a] stone boat from cut-over land. Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

A single shacker who lives in the cut-over regions of Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

John Today, an old miner now receiving six dollars and sixty-five cents a month on relief. He is a single shacker in Iron County, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

The common method of removing stones from cut-over land is by use of the crowbar. Near Caspian, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Typical house in Gibbs City, Michigan, a sawmill town. Two families live in this house.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

The twins and small daughter of the Stromberg family. Gibbs City, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Back porch on a washday. Gibbs City, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Children at Gibbs City, Michigan

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Child feeding calf on farm near Gibbs City, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Members of the transient camp saw up old sleds for firewood. Near Hagerman Lake, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Resident of the transient camp at Hagerman Lake, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

The roads are so bad to the transient camp at Hagerman Lake, Michigan, that it is necessary to haul supplies by mud sled for the last quarter mile. The camp has no telephone system and no resident doctor.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Man making baskets at transient camp. Hagerman Lake, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Barber shop in the lumber camp at Hagerman Lake, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Men in transient camp near Hagerman Lake, Michigan.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Some of the residents of the transient camp operated by the state of Michigan at Hagerman Lake. About a hundred men are quartered here, mostly old lumberjacks, miners, and other unemployables. Some of these men stay for just a short time. When men come to camp they are usually undernourished.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Men in the recreation room of the transient camp at Hagerman Lake, Michigan.

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Men eating in the transient camp at Hagerman Lake, Michigan. This is a former lumber camp.

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Photo by Russell Lee, via the Library of Congress

Member of the transient camp. Hagerman Lake, Michigan.

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Photo from the Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons

A portrait of Russell Lee, the Farm Security Administration photographer who took these photos in 1937. Lee died in 1986.

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