Early Life
Dorothea Lange was born on May 26, 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey. At age seven, she contracted polio, and it left her with a permanent limp. Her father left her family at age 12. Dorothea Lange was drawn to pictures. As a teenager, she kept a job at a library, but says she never payed attention to the words in the books, only the photos. She knew photography was what she wanted to do. After she graduated high school, her and a friend took off for a trip around the world, but they were stopped in San Francisco when their car broke down. They had to make a life in San Francisco all of a sudden. Dorothea Lange landed a job as film processor in a drug store, until Imogene Cunningham and Roi Partridge gave Dorothea a studio in their apartment building. Dorothea worked there as a studio photographer, meaning she took portraits of individuals and their families. Once the Great Depression started, people could no longer afford to have portraits taken by Lange. Dorothea decided to take pictures of her surroundings. She took her camera onto the streets and began to take photographs of soup kitchens, women's mended stockings, and anything that inspired her. Her early work was put into one of Williard Van Dyke's exhibits. Catching the attention of Paul Taylor, more of her pictures were published, and soon Paul Taylor asked her to began a career with him, to which she happily obliged.
Migrant Work
During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt passed an act called the "New Deal" that was created to produce more jobs for the citizens of America that suffered from poverty. As a part of this deal, in 1935, the Farm Security Administration (FSA, previously the Relocation Authority) expanded to accommodate a media branch that documented the poor in the United States. Dorothea Lange and many others were hired by Roy Stryker, who was head of the branch. Lange traveled from Washington to California to take pictures of people living or working at migrant farms across the West Coast. Some of her most famous works include, "Damaged Child" (1936), "Jobless on the Edge of a Peafield" (1937), "Woman of the High Plains" (1938), and "Migrant Mother" (1936, pictured on the left). Her photographs were so inspirational and captured the feelings and situations of these people so honestly that she influenced many legislators to pass laws in order to improve the living conditions of these farmers. When she wasn't photographing migrant workers, she photographed Southern families, African Americans, people escaping from the Dust Bowl, and everything in between that spoke to her.
Internment Camp Work
After the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941 and during the time where America was at war with the Japanese in World War II, the government established internment camps where they kept the Japanese Americans who were living in the United States. The Japanese were forced to live in conditions similar to a jail. They were forced to follow rules, curfews, and other orders to the pinpointed-details. Dorothea was asked by the War Location Authority (WRA) to document these camps. She was under strict orders not to photograph guards, watchtowers, torture, or anything that questioned the government's choices. Following her instructions, she instead protested silently through taking pictures in an ironic style. Her photographs showed the victims of the camps as harmless, showing that it was foolish to punish innocent people. She also showed that the Japanese Americans were just like us. She showed them as families, individuals, compassionate Americans, and other types of people that were reflected in other Americans. For this silent protesting, she was fired from her job at the WRA and her photographs were not releases to the public until many years later. However, when they were released, she changed people's ideals of how to treat outsiders and people who weren't trusted because of their race or ethnicity.
Later Life
After Lange was fired by the WRA, she worked with the migrant farms very little to none before shifting her eyes to other projects. Lange did small projects here and there, but mostly photographed her grandchildren and her surroundings. In her last few years, her husband took her on a trip around the world, where she photographed the people and cultures she saw. This inspired her to write several articles for LIFE magazine. Soon after she returned, Dorothea Lange died of esophugal cancer on October 11, 1965.Dorothea Lange changed the photography field and the hearts of people in the Depression forever.
Dorothea Lange was born on May 26, 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey. At age seven, she contracted polio, and it left her with a permanent limp. Her father left her family at age 12. Dorothea Lange was drawn to pictures. As a teenager, she kept a job at a library, but says she never payed attention to the words in the books, only the photos. She knew photography was what she wanted to do. After she graduated high school, her and a friend took off for a trip around the world, but they were stopped in San Francisco when their car broke down. They had to make a life in San Francisco all of a sudden. Dorothea Lange landed a job as film processor in a drug store, until Imogene Cunningham and Roi Partridge gave Dorothea a studio in their apartment building. Dorothea worked there as a studio photographer, meaning she took portraits of individuals and their families. Once the Great Depression started, people could no longer afford to have portraits taken by Lange. Dorothea decided to take pictures of her surroundings. She took her camera onto the streets and began to take photographs of soup kitchens, women's mended stockings, and anything that inspired her. Her early work was put into one of Williard Van Dyke's exhibits. Catching the attention of Paul Taylor, more of her pictures were published, and soon Paul Taylor asked her to began a career with him, to which she happily obliged.
Migrant Work
During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt passed an act called the "New Deal" that was created to produce more jobs for the citizens of America that suffered from poverty. As a part of this deal, in 1935, the Farm Security Administration (FSA, previously the Relocation Authority) expanded to accommodate a media branch that documented the poor in the United States. Dorothea Lange and many others were hired by Roy Stryker, who was head of the branch. Lange traveled from Washington to California to take pictures of people living or working at migrant farms across the West Coast. Some of her most famous works include, "Damaged Child" (1936), "Jobless on the Edge of a Peafield" (1937), "Woman of the High Plains" (1938), and "Migrant Mother" (1936, pictured on the left). Her photographs were so inspirational and captured the feelings and situations of these people so honestly that she influenced many legislators to pass laws in order to improve the living conditions of these farmers. When she wasn't photographing migrant workers, she photographed Southern families, African Americans, people escaping from the Dust Bowl, and everything in between that spoke to her.
Internment Camp Work
After the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941 and during the time where America was at war with the Japanese in World War II, the government established internment camps where they kept the Japanese Americans who were living in the United States. The Japanese were forced to live in conditions similar to a jail. They were forced to follow rules, curfews, and other orders to the pinpointed-details. Dorothea was asked by the War Location Authority (WRA) to document these camps. She was under strict orders not to photograph guards, watchtowers, torture, or anything that questioned the government's choices. Following her instructions, she instead protested silently through taking pictures in an ironic style. Her photographs showed the victims of the camps as harmless, showing that it was foolish to punish innocent people. She also showed that the Japanese Americans were just like us. She showed them as families, individuals, compassionate Americans, and other types of people that were reflected in other Americans. For this silent protesting, she was fired from her job at the WRA and her photographs were not releases to the public until many years later. However, when they were released, she changed people's ideals of how to treat outsiders and people who weren't trusted because of their race or ethnicity.
Later Life
After Lange was fired by the WRA, she worked with the migrant farms very little to none before shifting her eyes to other projects. Lange did small projects here and there, but mostly photographed her grandchildren and her surroundings. In her last few years, her husband took her on a trip around the world, where she photographed the people and cultures she saw. This inspired her to write several articles for LIFE magazine. Soon after she returned, Dorothea Lange died of esophugal cancer on October 11, 1965.Dorothea Lange changed the photography field and the hearts of people in the Depression forever.