A migrant family
Dorothea
Lange
About this photograph :
A migrant family
Mars 1936, Nipomo en Californie. Florence Owens Thompson et ses enfants. Démunis March 1936, Nipomo in California. Florence Owens Thompson and her children. Having lost everything, they took refuge in a temporary camp, where more than 2,500 workers taking refuge had settled, known at the time as, ‘migrant workers.’ Dorothea Lange took this photograph with a large format (4x5) Grafflex camera. This photograph belongs to the FSA (Farm Security Administration).
About the artist :
Dorothea
Lange
"One should really use a camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind." Dorothea Lange
Born in Hoboken (New Jersey) in 1895, Dorothea Lange (real name Margaretha Lange) is today an icon of photography thanks to her photos taken during the Depression. After a short period in New York, from 1918 Dorothea Lange began living in San Francisco and opened a portrait studio. The 1929 crisis urged the photographer to change her focus to the street. Black Thursday was the beginning of a world economic depression which led to a significant increase in unemployment; this is what Dorothea photographed in the street, with a firm goal: to increase awareness about the surrounding poverty. In 1935 she was noticed by the Resettlement Administration (Relocation Office), launched by Franklin Roosevelt’s government, she was then called some time afterwards by the Farm Security Administration (FSA). This American organization was created by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1937, to help the poorest farmers affected by the Depression. She lauded the exploitation of photography to use support from politic and economic spheres to create awareness of the social decline. So these photos belonged to the State, and were circulated thanks to their publication in newspapers across the country. Indefatiguably, Dorothea Lange photographed individuals caught up in the wheels of a delicate economic situation. But in 1943, following deep-rooted ideological disagreements with the American government, Dorothea decided to resign. With no aesthetic vocation but revealing her own view on poverty, her photos succeeded in having a political and social impact. She passed away on 11th October 1965 after suffering from cancer.
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