Dorothea Lange- Posted by Melynie Northcott

Dorothea Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. She took photography classes at Columbia University. She worked at a New York portrait studio until 1918, and then she decided to travel the country. While she did not like to be in the studio, she did this kind of work during the 1920’s. She traveled to the southwest with her husband and began to photograph Native Americans. She believed that the camera could teach people “how to see without a camera.” She was known as the most gifted photographers, because she really documented the poverty people faced during the Depression years. Her Depression subjects may be dated, but the message captured in those images is timeless.

Her most outstanding personal characteristic was her keen visual and auditory perceptiveness that in her combined with a strong belief in human benevolence, kindness, and justice. The photograph that has become known as "Migrant Mother" is one of a series of photographs that Dorothea Lange made of Florence Owens Thompson and her children in February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. This is the most prominent photograph that really captured the essence of poverty. The mother in this photo really shows how hard life was during that time. In 1960, Lange gave this account of the experience: “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it”. 

I can only imagine how hard it must have been during that time, but the photographs taken by Lange really opened my eyes. You could just feel the people’s emotions while looking at the photos. She captured moments that no one else could during that time. She did not want to make them look like models or capture a beautiful sunset, she captured their souls almost. These are real people dealing with real problems and she did a wonderful job of giving people today a view into the past. Dorothea Lange was not only a great photographer, but she was passionate about helping others. Her concern for these people was really an artistic expression that many other people couldn't capture during that time.

Works Cited

"Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" Photographs in the Farm Security Administration Collection: An Overview." Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" Photographs in the Farm Security Administration Collection: An Overview (Library of Congress). Library of Congress, 2004. Web. 03 Mar. 2014.

Gawthrop, L. C. (1993). Dorothea Lange and visionary change. Society, 30(5), 64-67.

Shetterly, Robert. "Dorothea Lange." Americans Who Tell The Truth. Americans Who Tell The Truth, 2006. Web. 03 Mar. 2014.

"THE COLLECTION." MoMA.org. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2009. Web. 03 Mar. 2014.

~ Melynie Northcott