Children working in cotton fields, Nile Delta region, Egypt

"Basin irrigation allowed the growth of one single winter crop. When Muhammad Ali (1805-52) set out to modernize Egypt by transforming water into wealth through the cultivation of cotton -an important export crop that needed water- dams were constructed to provide for perennial irrigation." [Kamil Jill, 1993: Aswan and Abu Simbel, History and Guide. The American University in Cairo Press]. During his trip to Egypt, Elisofon visited the new Liberation Province of the western Delta region. This province was carved out of the desert by water from the Rosetta branch (Arabic Rashid, Far`) of the Nile as part of a land reclamation scheme under the Nasser government's agrarian reform program." [Eliot Elisofon, Laurens Van Der Post, 1964: The Nile, The Viking Press]. This photograph was taken when Eliot Elisofon was on assignment for Life magazine and traveled to Africa from January 8, 1947 to end of June 1947.