Dorothea Lange was a documentary photographer known for her Depression-era images and portraits. She began her career as a portrait photographer in San Francisco in the 1920s. In the 1930s, she began documenting the impacts of the Great Depression and issues facing migrant agricultural workers for the Farm Security Administration. One of her most iconic photos was her 1936 image "Migrant Mother." Throughout her career, she continued photographing issues of social justice, including the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII and her travels documenting people in Asia and North Africa.

1. Dorothea Lange
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html

2. Biography
• May 26, 1895 - October 11, 1965
• Social Realism
• Documentary photographer and
photojournalist
• Contracted polio at the age of 7,
leaving her with a limp and father
walked out on the family
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_nf=1&qe=ZG9yb3RoZWEgbGE&qesig=b4nWOMbExqLXT-
dXYv0N4g&pkc=AFgZ2tlg2cmHR4CQOVnjdVLiv_fXFQx9wz1LpGULTtlD9yagXz8OD0OoRLjqrQobmU-0hKL0e97tBL4GnPk3K60Qj279TjXzFw&cp=11&gs_id=15&xhr=t&q=dorothea+lange&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&oq=dorothea
+la&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=e82fd6f5b68cf4ef&biw=1224&bih=663

3. Life’s Work
• Began as a portrait
photographer in 1920s San
Francisco, where she recorded
the effect of the depression
• Early documentary work on
native americans
• 1935 Began work for Farm
Security administration,
documenting migration of farm
families in search of work
Between Weedpatch and Lamont, Kern
County, California. Children living in
http://berkeley.edu/lange/lange.html
camp...Rent $2.75 plus electricity.

4. Life Work (cont.)
• During WWII she documented the
relocation of Japanese Americans to
internment camps
• Also documented women and minority
workers in wartime industries
• Later life traveled the world taking
pictures of Ireland, Asia, and Egypt
• Documented the consequences of
California’s post war boom.
• First woman awarded a Guggenheim
fellowship for photography
On the Road: 1939

5. Portraits in the
Southwest
• Opened portrait studio in 1918 with husband Maynard Dixon
• Her husband’s work consisted of subjects of the southwest
• Applied her talent for taking portraits in the southwest
Hopi Man
Experiment in light and shadow and
abstraction
Taos, New Mexico, 1931
Her early work was more soft-focus
portraiture
This portrait bridges her early work
with her later documentary work

6. Documenting
Depression
• Photographed the human condition
• 1934: First show in which Lange
exhibited pictures of political
demonstrations, strike rallies, labor
leaders, and breadline recipients
• These photos lead to her job working
for the US Government’s New Deal
Administration
• Photos became symbols of migrant White Angel Breadline,
experience San Francisco, 1933
• persuasive evidence of the urgent need
for government to assist disadvantaged
Americans
A New Beginning: 1939

7. Migrant Mother
• One of a series of
photographs of Florence
Owens Thompson
• Made using a graffix camera
• “Drawn by a magnet”
• Destitute pea pickers in
California. Mother of seven
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/lange/index.html children

8. Photographs
• South of Eloy, Pinal County, Arizona
• 10 year old migratory Mexican cotton
picker
• He is fixing the family car and does not
go to school
• He says he does not go to school because
his father wants him to help pick cotton
• The previous day he had picked 25
pounds of Pima cotton
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/lange/index.html

9. Photographs
• Arizona Highway 87, south of
Chandler, Maricopa County,
Arizona
• Migratory family living in a trailer
in a open field with no sanitation
and no water
• Came from Amarillo, Texas and on
the way pulled bolls and picked
cotton.
• Plan to return to Amarillo when
cotton picking season is over
http://
www.historyplace.com/
unitedstates/lange/
index.html

10. Photographs
• Photograph suggest jovial
camaraderie could relieve the
strain of the fields
• Work was hard to come by in
the 1930s, these laborers were
lucky
• picking cantaloupes in the
Imperial Valley
• Extremely hot and dry day
Mexican Labor Off for the Melon
Fields in the Imperial Valley

11. California, March 1937.
“Toward Los Angeles.”
November 1938. “Migrant cotton picker’s
child who lives in a tent in the
government camp instead of along the
highway or in a ditch bank. Shafter
Camp, California.”
June 1938. “Butter bean vines across the
porch. Negro quarter in Memphis,
Tennessee.”
http://www.flavorwire.com/198252/gallery-dorothea-langes-harrowing-depression-era-photography#7

12. WWII Japanese
Americans
• Lange received another federal
commission from the government’s War
Relocation Authority
• She photographed the forced internment
of Japanese Americans
• This image was made two weeks before
the Japanese Americans of San Francisco
were to be assembled, Spring 1942
• Wanted to also document ordinary life
before imprisonment
Pledge of Allegiance, Raphael Weill
Elementary School, San Francisco, April
1942

13. 1942 A family in Hayward, Calif., awaits
an evacuation bus.
Inside a barracks apartment at Tanforan.
Horse stalls at Tanforan that
were transformed into living
quarters for internees.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/arts/design/06lang.html

14. Asia
• Lange traveled with husband
Paul Taylor
• She made several trips with him
to Asia, South America, and the
Middle East
• Pictures that contain the essence
of “a visual life”
Korean Child, 1958

15. Egypt
• Powerful expressions of
both women though one
covers herself with a vail
• emphasize emotional
moments
• Frequently photographed
women this way
Egypt 1963, Woman
Balancing Large Bowl