“Our Boss Owns 77 Houses”: The 1938 Tobacco Worker Sign That Defined an Era

A single handmade sign captured the deep outrage of the Great Depression. Captured in a 1938 Library of Congress photograph in Richmond, Virginia, a Black tobacco factory worker joined the picket line for fair wages holding a placard that read: "Our Boss Owns 77 Houses • We Can't Pay Rent."

Standing on a cobblestone street, she was part of a historic wave of Southern labor activism led largely by underpaid women. While nearly one in four Americans faced unemployment and those with jobs earned just a few dollars a week, factory owners built massive fortunes and real estate portfolios. Her eleven blunt words laid that stark inequality bare.

Women were at the forefront of these labor disputes because they directly managed squeezed household budgets and confronted landlords when pay fell short. Her sign transformed a private struggle to pay rent into a bold, public protest against economic injustice.