WASHINGTON — Aug. 14, 1935. President Franklin D. Roosevelt today signed the Social Security Act, creating a federal framework for old-age benefits, unemployment insurance and aid programs—a New Deal pillar that will reshape Americans’ economic security. Photographers crowded the Cabinet Room as Roosevelt put pen to paper at the White House.

Yet the landmark law excluded major groups of workers at the heart of the U.S. economy—agricultural and domestic laborers—leaving much of the farm workforce outside the new safety net at its inception. Historians and SSA analysts note the exclusions reflected political compromises of the era and disproportionately affected Black workers.

Congress later moved to close those gaps. The 1950 amendments began covering many hired farm and domestic workers under specified wage conditions, and 1954 amendments expanded coverage further—bringing an estimated 2.1 million additional farm workers under Social Security over the course of a year. Coverage for self-employed farmers followed, effective with 1955 earnings.

Eighty-plus years on, the act’s signing remains a defining New Deal moment, captured in a series of now-iconic photographs that circulated nationwide.