Dorothea Lange
1936, February/March
Florence Owens Thompson montage (five prints)

Digital image
Creative Commons - Wikipedia
Public domain
 
Comments from Wikipedia - Accessed 7 April 2011
 
Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California
 
In the 1930s, the FSA employed several photographers to document the effects of the Great Depression on Americans. Many of the photographs can also be seen as propaganda images to support the U.S. government's policy distributing support to the worst affected, poorer areas of the country. Dorothea Lange's image of a migrant pea picker, Florence Owens Thompson, and her family has become an icon of resilience in the face of adversity.
 
Lange actually took six images that day, the last being the famous "Migrant Mother". This is a montage of the other five pictures.

1. Persons in picture (left to right) are: Viola (Pete) in rocker, age 14, standing inside tent; Ruby, age 5; Katherine, age 4, seated on box; Florence, age 32, and infant Norma, age 1 year, being held by Florence.
   
2. Pete has moved inside the tent, and away from Lange, in hopes her photo can not be taken. Katherine stands next to her mother. Florence is talking to Ruby, who is hiding behind her mother, as Lange took the picture.
   
3. Florence is nursing Norma. Katherine has moved back from her mother as Lange approached to take this shot. Ruby is still hiding behind her mother.
   
4. Left to right are Florence, Ruby and baby Norma.
   
5. Florence stopped nursing Norma and Ruby has come out from behind her. This photograph was the one used by the newspapers the following day to report the story of the migrants.
   

 
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