Patent medicine salesman (right) with a feathered headdress, showing remedies to US workers outside a tobacco warehouse where farming auction sales are being held. Patent medicines refers to the selling and advertising of exotic remedies were either dangerous or did not work as advertised. Photographed by US photographer Marion Post Wolcott (1910-1990) in November 1939, in Durham, North Carolina, USA. Wolcott, who worked for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) during the Great Depression, is best known for her work documenting poverty and deprivation.