Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936, Photograph, Harry Ransom Center.
The image is visceral. Painful. Heart-wrenching. Who is this woman, and what is she going through? What about her children? What became of this family?
This emotionally charged Depression-era moment was captured by documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, whose images skillfully portrayed difficult chapters in America’s history. New Jersey-born Lange worked for the Farm Security Administration to document the reality of life for people intimately affected by economic struggle, lack of jobs, home displacement, and loss of hope during the Great Depression of the 1930s. She also covered the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans in the 1940s for the War Relocation Authority. Her haunting images show the human toll of world event consequences, particularly the displacement of millions of people.
Migrant Mother has become an iconic representation of the uncertainty families experienced as they drifted across America in search of work, food, and some semblance of stability. Displaced, bankrupt farm families and migrant workers faced grueling conditions daily as they looked for agricultural work and whatever odd jobs they could find. Through the medium of photography Lange was able to bring public attention to the plight of the struggling poor.
The woman pictured in Migrant Mother was Florence Owens Thompson. Her face expresses the deep concern of a parent grappling with what steps to take next to provide for her children. No stranger to hard work, Thompson was a remarried widow who supported her children by working in fields and restaurants. As a migrant farm worker, she was accustomed to the challenges of following crops and picking everything from beets to cotton, often from daybreak until well past sunset.
The picture was taken at a pea-pickers camp north of Los Angeles. When Lange recalled this photo many years later, she explained, “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, as well as birds that the children killed.”
That day Lange captured what has become the most recognizable image from the Depression. How did the lives of the photographer and the subject unfold afterwards?
Dorothea Lange went on to become the first woman to receive a Guggenheim fellowship, which she used to document the experience of Japanese Americans forcibly detained during WWII. She co-launched a nonprofit foundation to advance photography, and she worked for Life magazine. A childhood polio survivor, Lange died at the age of 70.
Florence Owens Thompson, who was of Cherokee descent, continued to support her children by harvesting fields and getting jobs in bars, restaurants, and hospitals. The family eventually settled in Modesto, California, with Thompson continuing to work in the fields into her early fifties, often negotiating wages for her fellow workers. She died at the age of 80, and her children fondly remember her as the backbone of the family.
Lange’s and Thompson’s time together was brief but pivotal, reminding us that our interactions with others matter, regardless of how fleeting each encounter may be.
The life of Florence Owens Thompson is a strong, albeit heart-wrenching, testament to a mother’s sheer determination, strength, and never-ending love for her children. May all of us moms strive to have her strength, determination, and boundless love for our children.
