The Farm Security Administration photographers intended to both document the plight of those most severely experiencing the Depression and to raise awareness about their poor living conditions, what scholar Cara Finnegan has referred to as the social justice agenda of the FSA photography section. While some photographers used quilts to convey perseverance, other photographs explicitly tried to depict the dire conditions in which migrants, tenant farmers, and other impoverished Americans lived. The FSA aimed to use photos to demonstrate the need for governmental intervention and foster sympathy among lawmakers and middle- and upper-class Americans alike. The FSA public relations message—that these migrants needed governmental support—is not heavy handed in these interior photographs, but the surroundings in which the migrants live speak volumes.

Quilts—domestic objects that provided warmth, comfort, and beauty—served as the perfect means to convey how these migrants persevered. Further, the quilts softened these harsh living spaces by showing viewers how even within temporary dwellings, the inhabitants could have beloved patchwork bedcovers at hand to warm bodies and souls. Displaced migrant mothers may not have had the space, supplies, or leisure time to piece quilts, and as such, the displaced quilts—now in shacks, tents, and other temporary worker housing—served as reminders of earlier times of abundance and comfort.