Dorothea Lange

Explain how Dorothea Lange’s image ‘Migrant Mother’, 1936 documents the experiences of ordinary Americans during the Great Depression.

Dorothea Lange’s image ‘Migrant Mother’, 1936 documents the experience of ordinary Americans during the Great Depression by being a realistic and candid representation of what life was like for many Americans in 1936.

The 1930s in America was a period of drought and severe dust storms that greatly damaged the land and made an enormous impact on agriculture. The ‘Dust Bowl’ also displaced many people and families, and this is what happened to Florence Owens Thompson, the main subject of ‘Migrant Mother’. Thompson was originally from Oklahoma, which was then Indian Territory. Indian Territory was land set aside by the US government for Native Americans, which could mean that Florence Owens Thompson was a Native American. Many residents of Oklahoma died, and many were forced to leave their farms and seek survival/prosperity elsewhere, as Thompson did. She migrated to Nipomo, California, which is where ‘Migrant Mother’ was taken by Dorothea Lange.

‘Migrant Mother’ was taken in February or March of 1936, a devastating time for many people living on the margins in American society. Florence Owens Thompson, mother of seven, was thirty-two years old. She and her children were living in a tent in a frozen over peapickers camp with 2500 other farmers, destitute due to the failure of the early pea crop. They were said to be living off frozen vegetables from surrounding fields and birds that the children killed.

The subjects of the image form a sort of triangular shape, drawing the viewer’s eyes to Thompson’s eyes, helping them to empathise with her and read her emotions. The course texture of the worn fabrics and the grey tones unite the image to frame her despairing face. The way she is holding her baby and the fact that her shirt is slightly open suggests that she might have recently been breastfeeding, which would be the only way to feed her baby, as they were so poor. Although Thompson was only thirty-two when the photograph was taken, desperation and hardship shows in the premature aging of her face. Her expression suggests confusion, despair and emptiness, but her narrow gaze is focused elsewhere, perhaps conveying hope, and she almost seems to be daydreaming, perhaps of a better life.

The photograph ‘Migrant Mother’, taken by Dorothea Lange on a Graflex camera on 4x5” film, is an accurate representation of the lives of ordinary Americans during the Great Depression because it is so realistic of how Florence Owens Thompson and her children were living, as it was not staged or planned, it was simply a candid photograph taken to document the life of an ordinary American in 1936.