Turpentine workers collecting gum from pine trees, southern United States, circa 1940

About this postcard

Workers in a stand of tall southern pines tend cups and barrels at the base of scarred trunks, with a mule-drawn wagon loaded with barrels standing on the sandy woods road; the card's own caption names the scene as the turpentine industry of the South, collecting gum from pine trees. The gum (oleoresin) was chipped from longleaf and slash pines and gathered in cups or boxes, then distilled into turpentine and rosin — the "naval stores" trade that was long a staple of the piney-woods economy from North Carolina to Texas. The photograph is credited to the U.S. Forest Service, reflecting early twentieth-century interest in managing and documenting the southern pine forests.