Analysis Of The Migrant Mother By Dorothea Lange

The saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” cannot be demonstrated more thoroughly than during The Great Depression, a time when there were not a lot of words to be said. The photograph of the “Migrant Mother,” taken in this time period, The Great Depression, has inspired me want to dig deeper into Dorothea Lange’s experience during that time period. When I first saw the photograph of the “Migrant Mother,” I could not get the image out of my head because it tugged at my heart and it is something I have wanted to learn more about since we discussed Dorothea Lange in class.

Dorothea Lange is a photographer known for her best work during the 1930s with the Farm Security Administration. Her career however did not start out like that. At

age seven Dorothea had polio, which made her right leg weaker than her left. According to Lange, “It was the most important thing that happened to me, and formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me and humiliated me” ("Dorothea Lange"). After high school Dorothea tried painting but became bored with that and found a love for photography and decided to pursue it and worked for many photographers. By 1918, Dorothea was twenty-three years old and married to Maynard Dixon and had two sons. She had her own successful photography studio in San Francisco focusing on portraits. In 1929, Dorothea and Maynard were having marriage issues and on top of that the stock market crashed, so it was difficult for Maynard to sell his paintings. Dorothea was exhausted from taking care of the boys and doing household chores; she wanted to spend more time in her studio. As time went on Maynard and Dorothea decided to move into their own art studios and live separately. They told people it was to save money, but really they were on the verge of ending their marriage. Dorothea and her husband decided it would be best to their two boys to boarding school even though they were only four and seven years old (Partridge, Lange 31). The choice to send the boys away to boarding school enabled Dorothea to spend countless hours in her studio working on her passion. Dorothea continued to work on making photograph portraits for people who could afford them, but her attention was draw to what was happening her streets of San Francisco (Partridge, Lange 39). She began to see the labor strikes and breadlines happening right before her lens ("Dorothea Lange."). Lange found inspiration in the reality just outside her studio walls:
“In the midst of The Great Depression, Lange brought her large Graflex camera out of the studio and onto the streets. Her photos of the homeless and unemployed in San Francisco’s breadlines, labor demonstration, and soup kitchens led to a job with the FSA” (Burns).
Dorothea realized as she captured this pictures of these individuals they were once very successful business owners, bankers, and farmers (Partridge, Lange 40).
Dorothea and her husband, Maynard, decided to try their marriage one more time. They rented a small house and brought the boys back home. Even though they spent time together as a family Dorothea still devoted her life to her studio, so the boys still spent a large amount of time with other families. Their marriage may have been saved if it weren’t for a man named Paul Taylor who began helping Dorothea make connections in the photography world. Paul, a professor fascinated by Dorothea’s photographs, was studying self-help cooperatives and he asked Dorothea to join him in the field to capture photographs as he wrote Unemployed Exchange Association worker’s responses down. Paul didn’t think he would be able to show the State Emergency Relief Agency how bad the conditions were for the people forced out of their homes through his writing, so he convinced the State Emergency Relief Agency to hire Dorothea to capture the photographs. Dorothea and Paul traveled all over the west documenting unemployed families. It was during that time that they developed a love for each other. Dorothea left her husband Maynard and started a life with Paul Taylor. Dorothea took the two boys with her and Paul’s three children; they bought a house and raised all five children.
In August of 1935 Lange began capturing images of the nation’s poor, forgotten people such as the sharecroppers, families that had to move, and migrant workers for the FSA (Burns). These images were printed in newspaper shared all over the United States. Dorothea and her husband now, Paul Taylor, continued to travel the world as he wrote the reports while she captured the images. As time went on, Dorothea began writing down the words of the people in her photographs because she said, “the words that come direct from the people are the greatest” (Partridge, Lange 50). In order to do that, Dorothea made a point to gain the trust of the migrant workers and let them get to know her before she asked any questions about them. She would let the children touch her camera, she spent most of her long hour days getting to know the people in her photographs and their stories.
Dorothea’s image “Migrant Mother” stands out as one of the most prominent images Dorothea ever took.

Dorothea had spent a long day capturing images and she was going back to print the images when she had drove past a sign that said, “Pea Picker’s Camp.” Dorothea continued to drive thinking she had enough photographs she did not need anymore. Something struck her that she could not resist and eventually she turned around saying, “I was following instinct, not reason” (Partridge, Lange 2). She stopped at the worn down camp and was intrigued by a mother and her seven children. Dorothea took her camera over to them and no one asked any questions. She captured only six images of this mother and her youngest children. The woman had told Dorothea that the freezing rain and sleet had ruined the pea crop. They did not have any work and they had to sell tires for food (Partridge, Lange 3). Dorothea had no idea what those images would do for her career, but she knew she had to show the world what those people in “Pea Picker’s Camp” were going through.

“After returning home, Lange altered the editor of a San Francisco newspaper to the plight of the workers at the camp, presenting him with two of her photos. The editor informed federal authorities and published an article that included Lange’s images. As a result, the government rushed a shipment of 20,000 lbs. of food to the camp” ("Migrant Mother,

1936”).
The image of the “Migrant Mother” symbolizes what a lot of families all over the United States were experiencing. Her children were hiding behind her, trying to find protection, not wanting anyone to see their faces as the mother stared off into the distance. They had nothing, they were forced off their land and began to wander while living in poverty. There was no one to help and there was no protection from anything. The absent expression of the woman symbolizes what everyone already knew, things were not going to get better for a long time (Phelan).
As a result of Lange’s photographs of The Great Depression she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship award for photography in 1941. Soon after Lange received the award she moved on to capture images of Japanese American internment camps. Lange’s photographs told the true story of the war. The United States government did not like the photographs Lange had taken because of the controversy it caused when people saw the images. The government was not fond of her photographs because it displayed racism of the American government and people being pushed out of their homes (“Dorothea Lange Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works”). The government took Lange’s photographs and she was not able to see them until twenty years later.
After capturing photographs of America’s toughest times Dorothea Lange was still not seeing the changes in the world she wanted her photography to make. She took a break from photography because she was mentally and physically worn down from all the trips and it was starting to show in her health. In 1950, she continued with her passion for photography and participated in the Family of Man in The Museum of Modern Art in New York (“Dorothea Lange Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works”).
Dorothea Lange left a legacy.

She used her photography to impact people all over the United States. She did not like what she was seeing happen to her country and the people in it. Dorothea tried to use her passion of photography to make social and political changes in the United States. That did not necessarily happen, but she definitely made other people aware of what was really going on in her country. Dorothea Lange was the voice for those who were living on the streets, in migrant camps, traveling west, single women with young children, and others facing difficult times. Dorothea gave those people hope through her passion of photography and really getting to know them so she could make a difference in their lives. She was truly a unique person with a special talent who was set out to change the world through her lens. She will always be remembered for her most famous photograph the “Migrant

Mother.”