Dorothea Lange Research Paper

Jack Prewitt
Professor Karlstein
PHOT 107
6 May 2017
Dorothea Lange Research Paper
Dorothea Lange was a photographer from the United States who became well known for her photographic journalism on farmers during the Great Depression. Before I go into detail about her work as a photographer, I will offer background to her past. Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn was born on May 26, 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey. She was born to Heinrich Nutzhorn and Johanna Lange, second generation German immigrants who resided at 1041 Bloomfield street. Her only sibling was a younger brother named Martin. When her father left their family when she was only 12 years old, she dropped her middle name and inherited her mother’s maiden name. At seven years of age, Dorothea
You can detect this as her motive because the topics her work consisted of tended to be controversial. There are other photographers who shared a similar motive with Dorothea Lange. Most notably, the other 10 photographers that the Farm Security Administration hired to report and document the plight of poor farmers. The photographers were: Jack Delano, Walker Evans, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, John Vachon, and Marion Post Wolcott. Before I got into detail in how Lange’s work contrasts the work of these similar photographers, I will detail the unique characteristics of her
Since the Great Depression was such a large aspect of life in the 1930’s, most photographer captured photos depicting social injustice and economic hardship. Photos from this period meant to create awareness for social issues usually depicted scenes that the photographer did not interfere with, but rather showed the raw devastation of a subject. Dorothea Lange and other FSA photographers would achieve this by traveling areas that were economically burdened and captured disheartening scenes that they encountered.
In my opinion, I believe her work is brilliant. She successfully communicates feelings of anguish and depression through her documentary photography. Every photo that she captured has multiple meanings. While the scene depicted in the photograph is striking, the images contain an ulterior motive meant to inform viewers of devastation from people far away. In retrospect, Dorotha Lange helped pioneer the field of photojournalism. She established an art where photography is used to add another aspect to a story making it more