Dorothea's Photos During The Great Depression

Dorothea's photos evoke profound emotions and convey the struggle of everyday life for migrants during the Great Depression. Born 1895 in Hoboken, she started her life out with polio, which she says formed, guided, instructed, helped, but humiliated her; it might’ve been the most important event ever to happen to her. During the 1960’s, Dorothea was told she only had months left to live, yet she had not finished all she had hoped to. Determined to create an extensive SFA-style documentary, she reached out to John Szarkowski who helped her create a retrospective of her photos and exhibit them at MoMA; she was the first female photographer to ever be exhibited there. Her work during the depression started when she received a grant from the University
All of her photos show the vast amounts of emotion she put into her work. “Migrant Mother,” her most famous photo shows Florence Thompson holding two smaller children facing away and one baby swaddled in her lap. This family survived solely on birds and stolen frozen vegetables, and you can see the hunger in their faces. This photo among the numerous others forces viewers into it to feel what we imagine they did. Sympathy and empathy are the most dynamic ways of teaching history; being put into the shoes of another doesn’t just explain what happened, it makes one feel it. During the time, her photos showed Americans the daily struggle of others, either making them feel less alone in the time, or showing upperclassmen pain of the penniless. There is a theory she captured pictures of male vagrants to arouse more sympathy in congress. Dorothea’s photography heightened the current generation’s understanding of the Great Depression immensely. Her work also showed Americans through 1929-1939 that they were not struggling alone, and those with wealth during the time the anguish impoverished people were facing. To end on Woody Guthrie's words, Dorothea Lange's aspect was, “to comfort disturbed people and to disturb the