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{{Short description|American photojournalist (1895–1965)}}
[[Image:Dorothea Lange 1936.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Dorothea Lange in 1936]]
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2024}}
'''Dorothea Lange''' ([[May 26]], [[1895]] – [[October 11]], [[1965]]) was an influential documentary [[photographer]]. Lange is best known for her Depression-era work for the [[Farm Security Administration]] (FSA). Lange's photographs humanized the tragic consequences of the Great Depression and profoundly influenced the development of documentary photography.
{{Infobox artist
| name = Dorothea Lange
| image = Dorothea Lange atop automobile in California (restored) (cropped).jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Lange in 1936
| birth_name = Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn
| birth_date = {{Birth date |1895|5|26}}
| birth_place = [[Hoboken, New Jersey]], U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age |1965|10|11|1895|5|25}}
| death_place = [[San Francisco, California]], U.S.
| known_for = [[Documentary photography]], [[photojournalism]]
| spouse = {{ubl|
*{{marriage|[[Maynard Dixon]]|1920|1935|end=divorced}}
*{{marriage|[[Paul Schuster Taylor]]|1935<!--Omission per Template:Marriage instructions-->}} }}
| children = 2
| works = 1936 photograph of [[Florence Owens Thompson]], ''[[Migrant Mother]]''
| awards = [[California Hall of Fame]]}}
 
'''Dorothea Lange''' (born '''Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn'''; May 26, 1895&nbsp;– October 11, 1965) was an American [[Documentary photography|documentary photographer]] and [[photojournalist]], best known for her [[Great Depression|Depression]]-era work for the [[Farm Security Administration]] (FSA). Lange's photographs influenced the development of documentary photography and humanized the consequences of the [[Great Depression]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Journalism|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediajour00ster|url-access=limited|last=Hudson|first=Berkley|publisher=SAGE|year=2009|isbn=978-0-7619-2957-4|editor-last=Sterling|editor-first=Christopher H.|___location=Thousand Oaks, Calif.|pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediajour00ster/page/n1094 1060]–67}}</ref>
Born in [[Hoboken, New Jersey|Hoboken]] [[New Jersey]], Lange began her career in [[New York]], later migrating to [[San Francisco]] where she opened a portrait studio in [[1918]]. With the onset of the [[Great Depression]], Lange turned her camera lens from the studio to the street.
 
== Early life ==
Her searing studies of homelessness immediately captured the attention of local photographers and led to her employment with the federal Resettlement Administration (RA), later called the FSA. From [[1935]] to [[1940]], Lange's work for the RA and FSA brought the plight of the poor and forgotten, particularly displaced farm families and migrant workers, to public attention. Distributed free of charge to newspapers across the country, her poignant images quickly became icons of the era.
 
Lange was born in [[Hoboken, New Jersey]]<ref name=enc>Lurie, Maxine N. and Mappen, Marc. ''Encyclopedia of New Jersey''. 2004, page 455</ref><ref name=vau>Vaughn, Stephen L. ''Encyclopedia of American Journalism''. 2008, page 254</ref> to second-generation German immigrants Johanna Lange and Heinrich Nutzhorn.<ref name="dl-ae-network">{{cite web|url=https://www.biography.com/people/dorothea-lange-9372993|title=Dorothea Lange |publisher=A&E Television Network|date=April 2, 2014 |website=Biography|access-date=September 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170825231237/https://www.biography.com/people/dorothea-lange-9372993|archive-date=August 25, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> She had a younger brother named Martin.<ref name="dl-ae-network" /> Two early events shaped Lange's path as a photographer.
[[Image:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg|thumb|300px|left|This photograph, known as ''Migrant Mother'', is probably Dorothea Lange's most famous. It supposedly depicts destitute pea pickers in California, centering on a mother of seven children, age thirty-two, in [[Nipomo, California]], [[March]] [[1936]]. The woman in the picture is actually [[Florence Owens Thompson]], farmer, who was staying there until her friend and her boys came back with help for their broken down car.]]
First, at age seven she contracted [[polio]], which left her with a weakened right leg and a permanent limp.<ref name="enc" /><ref name="vau" /> "It formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me, and humiliated me," Lange once said of her altered gait. "I've never gotten over it, and I am aware of the force and power of it."<ref name="cr">{{cite web |url=https://www.crmagazine.org/archive/SpringSummer2010/Pages/DorotheaLangeEsophagealCancer.aspx |author=Corrina Wu |title=American Eyewitness |website=CR Magazine |date=2010 |access-date=September 14, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120301003336/https://www.crmagazine.org/archive/SpringSummer2010/Pages/DorotheaLangeEsophagealCancer.aspx |archive-date=March 1, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Second, five years later, her father abandoned the family, prompting a move from suburban New Jersey to a poorer neighborhood in New York City.<ref name="museumca">{{cite web |url=https://dorothealange.museumca.org/section/childhood-and-early-life/ |title=Childhood and Early Life |publisher=Dorothea Lange Digital Archive, Oakland Museum of California. |access-date=August 24, 2021 |archive-date=August 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210824191327/https://dorothealange.museumca.org/section/childhood-and-early-life/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Later she dropped her father's family name and took her mother's maiden name.<ref name="Dorothea">{{Cite book|title=Dorothea Lange|last=Dorothea|first=Lange|others=Introduction by Linda Gordon |isbn=9781597112956|edition= Second | publisher=Aperture Foundation |___location=New York City|oclc=890938300|year = 2014}}</ref>
 
Growing up on [[Lower East Side|Manhattan's Lower East Side]], she attended PS 62 on [[Hester Street (Manhattan)|Hester Street]], where she was "one of the only gentiles—quite possibly the only—in a class of 3,000 Jews."<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://forward.com/culture/440586/how-dorothea-lange-invented-the-american-west/|title=How Dorothea Lange Invented the American West|last=Arn|first=Jackson|date=March 5, 2020|website=Forward|access-date=April 4, 2020|archive-date=April 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200401234120/https://forward.com/culture/440586/how-dorothea-lange-invented-the-american-west/|url-status=live}}</ref> "Left on her own while her mother worked, Lange wandered the streets of New York, fascinated by the variety of people she saw. She learned to observe without intruding, a skill she would later use as a documentary photographer."<ref name="museumca" />
Her most famous photograph, commonly known as ''Migrant Mother'' (pictured left), was the sixth and last frame taken of Lange's haphazard visit to a migrant workers' campsite. She had initially passed the campsite, but twenty minutes later, she turned around on the highway to take another look. Rumor has it that the two younger children's faces are turned away from the camera because they were smiling and laughing during the picture, but none of the six frames shows them laughing or smiling. Lange had them turn away to give the image a more solemn, desperate mood. In [[1960]], Lange spoke about her experience taking the photograph:
 
== Career ==
:''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, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it.''
 
Lange graduated from the [[Wadleigh High School for Girls]], New York City;<ref>Acker, Kerry Dorothea Lange, Infobase Publishing, 2004</ref> by this time, even though she had never owned or operated a camera, she had already decided that she would become a photographer.<ref name="Dorothea. 1995">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/photographsofdor0000lang|title=The photographs of Dorothea Lange|last=Dorothea.|first=Lange|date=1995|publisher=Hallmark Cards in association with H.N. Abrams, New York|others=Davis, Keith F., 1952–, Botkin, Kelle A.|isbn=0810963159|___location=Kansas City, Missouri.|oclc=34699158|url-access=registration}}</ref> Lange began her study of photography at [[Columbia University]] under the tutelage of [[Clarence H. White]],<ref name="Dorothea. 1995"/> and later gained informal apprenticeships with several New York photography studios, including that of [[Arnold Genthe]].<ref name="Dorothea"/>
In 1941, Lange was awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] for excellence in photography. After the attack on [[Pearl Harbor]], she gave up the prestigious award to record the forced evacuation of [[Japan]]ese-Americans ([[Nisei]]) to relocation camps in the American West.
 
In 1918, Lange left New York with a female friend intending to travel the world, but her plans were disrupted upon being robbed. She settled in San Francisco where she found work as a 'finisher' in a photographic supply shop.<ref name="Mark Durden">{{cite book|last1=Durden|first1=Mark|title=Dorothea Lange (55)|publisher=Phaidon Press Limited|___location=London, England |isbn=0-7148-4053-X|page=126|year=2001}}<!--|access-date=April 11, 2015--></ref><ref name="Dorothea Lange · SFMOMA">{{Cite web |date=January 30, 2023 |title=Dorothea Lange · SFMOMA |url=https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Dorothea_Lange/ |access-date=February 3, 2024 |archive-date=January 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230130035944/https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Dorothea_Lange/ |url-status=live }}</ref> There, Lange became acquainted with other photographers and met an investor who backed her in establishing a successful portrait studio.<ref name=vau /><ref name="Dorothea"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/picturing_the_century/text/port_lange_text.html |title=Dorothea Lange |quote=Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) announced her intention to become a photographer at age 18. After apprenticing with a photographer in New York City, she moved to San Francisco and in 1919 established her own studio. |publisher=[[NARA]] |access-date=June 29, 2008 |archive-date=May 17, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517030910/http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/picturing_the_century/text/port_lange_text.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1920, she married the noted western painter [[Maynard Dixon]], with whom she had two sons, Daniel, born in 1925, and John, born in 1930.<ref name="Susan Oliver/Cerritos College">{{cite web |last1=Oliver |first1=Susan |title=Profile of Dorothea Lange |url=http://www.dorothea-lange.org:80/Resources/AboutLange.htm |website=Dorothea Lange: Photographer of the People |access-date=April 26, 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031015232231/http://www.dorothea-lange.org:80/Resources/AboutLange.htm |archive-date=October 15, 2003 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Lange's studio business supported her family for the next fifteen years.<ref name="Dorothea"/> Lange's early studio work mostly involved shooting portrait photographs of the social elite in San Francisco.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Stienhauer|first=Jillian|date=September 2012|title=Dorothea Lange|journal=Art + Auction|volume=36|pages=129}}</ref> But at the onset of the [[Great Depression]], she turned her lens from the studio to the street.
Lange was hired by the San Francisco Regional Office of the War Relocation Authority (WRA) in early April 1942 as a photographer investigator to document the evacuation of Japanese Americans from Northern California. Lange completed her work at the end of July 1942.
 
[[File:Dorothea Lange atop automobile in California (restored).jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Lange in 1936 holding a [[Graflex]] 4×5 camera atop a Ford [[1932 Ford#1934 Model 40 Special Speedster|Model 40]] in California, photographed by her assistant [[Rondal Partridge]] ]]
For decades after the war, images she made of U.S. soldiers carrying weapons as they rounded up the Japanese-Americans were censored by the U.S. government.[2] Her photograph of young Japanese American girls pledging allegiance to the flag shortly before she was abducted to the camps [3] is a haunting reminder that patriotism is no protection for the children of unwanted immigrants.
 
In the depths of the worldwide depression, in 1933, some fourteen million people in the U.S. were out of work; many were homeless, drifting aimlessly, often without enough food to eat. In the midwest and southwest, drought and dust storms added to the economic havoc. During the decade of the 1930s, some 300,000 men, women, and children migrated west to California, hoping to find work. Broadly, these migrant families were called by the opprobrium [[Okie|"Okies" (as from Oklahoma)]] regardless of where they came from. They traveled in old, dilapidated cars or trucks, wandering from place to place to follow the crops. Lange began to photograph these luckless folk, leaving her studio to document their lives in the streets and roads of California. She roamed the byways with her camera, portraying the extent of the social and economic upheaval of the Depression. It is here that Lange found her purpose and direction as a photographer. She was no longer a portraitist; but neither was she a photojournalist. Instead, Lange became known as one of the first of a new kind, a "documentary" photographer.<ref name=Perchick>Perchick, Max. "'Dorothea Lange' the Greatest Documentary Photographer in the United States." Photographic Society of America 61.6 (n.d.): June 1995. Web.</ref>
According to the Oakland Museum, repository for most of Lange's work, it has been estimated that of the approximately 13,000 existing photographs taken for the federal government, Lange made over 700. According to Oakland Museum archivists, "because of the political nature of her relocation photography, she was required to turn over to the WRA all of her negatives, prints, and undeveloped film; thus, very little of this material is contained within the museum's archive." Following the end of the war, a complete file of Lange's WRA negatives and prints was placed in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., with a duplicate set of prints placed at the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley.
 
Lange's photographic studies of the unemployed and homeless—starting with ''White Angel Breadline (1933)'', which depicted a lone man facing away from the crowd in front of a soup kitchen run by a widow known as the White Angel<ref name="Mark Durden, p3">Durden, p. 3.</ref>—captured the attention of local photographers and media, and eventually led to her employment with the federal [[Resettlement Administration]] (RA), later called the [[Farm Security Administration]] (FSA).
Lange's first husband was noted Western Painter [[Maynard Dixon]].
 
Lange developed personal techniques of talking with her subjects while working, putting them at ease and enabling her to document pertinent remarks to accompany the photography. The titles and annotations often revealed personal information about her subjects.<ref name=Perchick/>
In [[1952]] Lange was one of the founders of ''[[Aperture (magazine)|Aperture]]''.
 
===Resettlement Administration===
On [[October 11]], [[1965]], Lange died in [[San Francisco]] at the age of seventy.
 
[[File:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg|thumb|Lange's iconic 1936 photograph of [[Florence Owens Thompson]], ''[[Migrant Mother]]'']]
[[File:Broke, baby sick, and car trouble! - Dorothea Langes photo of a Missouri family of five in the vicinity of Tracy, California.jpg|thumb|''"Broke, baby sick, and car trouble!"'' (1937)]]
 
Lange and Dixon divorced on October 28, 1935, and on December 6 she married economist [[Paul Schuster Taylor]], professor of economics at the [[University of California, Berkeley]].<ref name="Susan Oliver/Cerritos College"/> For the next five years they traveled through the California coast and the midwest.<ref name=":0" /> Throughout their travels they documented rural poverty, in particular the exploitation of [[Sharecropping|sharecroppers]] and migrant laborers. Taylor interviewed subjects and gathered economic data while Lange produced photographs and accompanying data. They lived and worked from [[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]] for the rest of her life.
==References==
* [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/oct11.html Library of Congress ''Today in History, October 11'']
 
Working for the [[Resettlement Administration]] and [[Farm Security Administration]], Lange's images brought to public attention the plight of the poor and forgotten—particularly sharecroppers, displaced farm families, and migrant workers. Lange's work was distributed to newspapers across the country, and the poignant images became icons of the era.
2 [http://freedomvoices.org/1langepx/wra531.htm Civil Control Station, Registration for evacuation and proccessing. San Francisco, April 1942. War Relocation Authority, Photo By Dorothea Lange,From the National Archive and Records Administration taken for the War Relocation Authority courtesy of the Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley, California. Published in Image and Imagination, Encounters with the Photography of Dorothea Lange, Edited by Ben Clarke, Freedom Voices, San Francisco, 1997]
 
One of Lange's most recognized works is ''[[Migrant Mother]]'', published in 1936.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2006/04/30/stories/2006043000380500.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071017152413/https://hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2006/04/30/stories/2006043000380500.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 17, 2007|work=[[The Hindu]]|title=Two women and a photograph}}</ref> The woman in the photograph is [[Florence Owens Thompson]]. In 1960, Lange spoke about her experience taking the photograph:
3 [http://freedomvoices.org/1langepx/wra78.htm Pledge of allegiance at Rafael Weill Elementary School a few weeks prior to evacuation, April, 1942. N.A.R.A.; 14GA-78 From the National Archive and Records Administration taken for the War Relocation Authority courtesy of the Bancroft Library. Published in Image and Imagination, Encounters with the Photography of Dorothea Lange, Edited by Ben Clarke, Freedom Voices, San Francisco, 1997]
 
{{Blockquote|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, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it.<ref name=popphot>{{cite news |author=Dorothea Lange |title=The Assignment I'll Never Forget |work=[[Popular Photography]] |volume=46 |issue=2 |date=June 1960 |pages=42–43, 126 |url=https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/lklichfall13/files/2013/09/Lange.pdf |access-date=March 18, 2021 |archive-date=February 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210226162538/https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/lklichfall13/files/2013/09/Lange.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>|author=|title=|source=}}
 
Lange reported the conditions at the camp to the editor of a San Francisco newspaper, showing him her photographs.<ref name="Dorothea Lange · SFMOMA"/> The editor informed federal authorities and published an article that included some of the images. In response, the government rushed aid to the camp to prevent starvation.<ref name="americanmasters">{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dorothea-lange-about-the-film/3096/|title=Dorothea Lange ~ Watch Full Film: Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning|work=American Masters|publisher=PBS|date=August 30, 2014|access-date=September 10, 2015|archive-date=September 12, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150912155040/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/dorothea-lange/watch-full-film-dorothea-lange-grab-a-hunk-of-lightning/3260/|url-status=live}}</ref>
 
According to Thompson's son, while Lange got some details of the story wrong, the impact of the photograph came from an image that projected both the strengths and needs of migrant workers.<ref name="newtimes">{{cite news | url=https://www.newtimes-slo.com/archives/cov_stories_2002/cov_01172002.html#top | title=Photographic license | first=Geoffrey | last=Dunne | work=[[New Times Media|New Times]] | year=2002 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20020602103656/https://www.newtimes-slo.com/archives/cov_stories_2002/cov_01172002.html#top |archive-date = June 2, 2002}}</ref> Twenty-two of Lange's photographs produced for the [[Farm Security Administration|FSA]] were included in John Steinbeck's ''[[The Harvest Gypsies]]'' when it was first published in 1936 in ''[[The San Francisco News]]''.<ref name="Dorothea Lange · SFMOMA"/> Lange's photos served as inspiration for the 1940 film adaptation of [[The Grapes of Wrath (film)|The Grapes of Wrath]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ignotofsky |first=Rachel |title=Women in Art: 50 Fearless Creatives Who Inspired the World |publisher=Penguin Random House |year=2019 |isbn=9780399580437}}</ref> According to an essay by photographer [[Martha Rosler]], ''Migrant Mother'' became the most reproduced photograph in the world.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975–2001|url=https://archive.org/details/decoysdisruption00rosl|url-access=limited|last=Rosler|first=Martha|author-link=Martha Rosler|year=2004|pages=[https://archive.org/details/decoysdisruption0000rosl/page/n184?q=%22most+reproduced%22 184]|publisher=MIT Press |isbn=9780262182317}}</ref>
==External links==
*[http://artarchives.si.edu/oralhist/lange64.htm 1964 oral history interview with Lange]
*[http://www.museumca.org/global/art/collections_dorothea_lange.html Oakland Museum of California - Dorothea Lange ]
*[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?pp/fsaall:@FILREQ(@OR(@field(AUTHOR+@od1(Lange,+Dorothea,+photographer+))+@field(OTHER+@od1(Lange,+Dorothea,+photographer+)))+@FIELD(COLLID+fsa)) Gallery of all Lange FSA photographs] at the [[Library of Congress]]
 
===Japanese American internment===
[[Category:1895 births|Lange, Dorothea]]
[[Category:1965 deaths|Lange, Dorothea]]
[[Category:American photographers|Lange, Dorothea]]
[[Category:Photojournalists|Lange, Dorothea]]
[[Category:Portrait photographers|Lange, Dorothea]]
[[Category:Social realism artists|Lange, Dorothea]]
 
[[File:JapaneseAmericansChildrenPledgingAllegiance1942-2.jpg|thumb|Children at the Weill public school in San Francisco recite the [[Pledge of Allegiance]] to the American flag in April 1942, prior to the internment of Japanese Americans.]]
[[de:Dorothea Lange]]
[[File:Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, California. Grandfather and grandson of Japanese ancestry at . . . - NARA - 537994.jpg|thumb|Grandfather and grandson at [[Manzanar]] Relocation Center]]
[[fr:Dorothea Lange]]
In 1941, Lange became the first woman to be awarded a prestigious [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] for in Photography.<ref>{{cite web|title=Dorothea Lange|url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/dorothea-lange/|publisher=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|access-date=August 26, 2016|archive-date=August 28, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160828063642/http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/dorothea-lange/|url-status=live}}</ref> After the attack on [[Pearl Harbor]], she gave up the fellowship in order to go on assignment for the [[War Relocation Authority]] (WRA) to document the forced evacuation of [[Japanese Americans]] from the west coast of the US.<ref name=WDL1>{{cite web|title=Hayward, California, Two Children of the Mochida Family who, with Their Parents, Are Awaiting Evacuation|date=May 8, 1942|url=https://www.wdl.org/en/item/2736|publisher=[[World Digital Library]]|access-date=February 10, 2013|archive-date=November 21, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111121185319/http://www.wdl.org/en/item/2736/|url-status=live}}</ref> She covered the [[Japanese American internment|internment of Japanese Americans]]<ref>[https://freedomvoices.org/1langepx/wra531.htm Civil Control Station, Registration for evacuation and processing. San Francisco, April 1942. War Relocation Authority] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510085125/http://freedomvoices.org/1langepx/wra531.htm |date=May 10, 2021 }}, Photograph By Dorothea Lange, From the National Archive and Records Administration taken for the War Relocation Authority courtesy of the Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley, California. Published in ''Image and Imagination, Encounters with the Photography of Dorothea Lange'', Edited by Ben Clarke, Freedom Voices, San Francisco, 1997.</ref> and their subsequent incarceration, traveling throughout urban and rural California to photograph families required to leave their houses and hometowns on orders of the government. Lange visited several temporary assembly centers as they opened, eventually fixing on [[Manzanar]], the first of the permanent internment camps (located in eastern California, some 300 miles from the coast).
[[sv:Dorothea Lange]]
 
Much of Lange's work focused on the waiting and anxiety caused by the forced collection and removal of people: piles of luggage waiting to be sorted; families waiting for transport, wearing identification tags; young-to-elderly individuals, stunned, not comprehending why they must leave their homes, or what their future held.<ref>{{cite web |last=Alinder |first=Jasmine |url=https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Dorothea_Lange/ |title=Dorothea Lange |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=August 28, 2014 |archive-date=August 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140814082419/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Dorothea_Lange/ |url-status=live }}</ref> (See [[Internment of Japanese Americans#Exclusion, removal, and detention|Exclusion, removal, detention]].) To many observers, Lange's photography—including one photo of American school children pledging allegiance to the flag shortly before being removed from their homes and schools and sent to internment<ref>[https://freedomvoices.org/1langepx/wra78.htm Pledge of allegiance at Rafael Weill Elementary School a few weeks prior to evacuation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510082434/http://freedomvoices.org/1langepx/wra78.htm |date=May 10, 2021 }}, April 1942. N.A.R.A.; 14GA-78 From the National Archive and Records Administration taken for the War Relocation Authority courtesy of the Bancroft Library. Published in ''Image and Imagination, Encounters with the Photography of Dorothea Lange'', Edited by Ben Clarke, Freedom Voices, San Francisco, 1997.</ref>—is a haunting reminder of the travesty of incarcerating people who are not charged with committing a crime.<ref>Davidov, Judith Fryer. ''Women's Camera Work''. 1998, p. 280</ref>
 
Sensitive to the implications of her images, authorities impounded most of Lange's photography of the internment process—these photos were not seen publicly during the war.<ref name="dl-nyt-nov2006">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/arts/design/06lang.html|title=Photographs of an Episode That Lives in Infamy|author=Dinitia Smith |newspaper=The New York Times|date=November 6, 2006|access-date=March 17, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170802023344/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/arts/design/06lang.html|archive-date=August 2, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="dl-na-feb2017">{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/news/articles/japanese-internment-75th-anniversary|title=Correcting the Record on Dorothea Lange's Japanese Internment Photos|author=Kerri Lawrence|publisher=National Archives News|date=February 16, 2017|access-date=September 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170720022252/https://www.archives.gov/news/articles/japanese-internment-75th-anniversary|archive-date=July 20, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> Today her photography of the evacuations and internments is available in the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]] on the website of the Still Photographs Division, at the [[Bancroft Library]] of the [[University of California, Berkeley]], and at the [[Oakland Museum of California]].
 
===California School of Fine Arts and San Francisco Art Institute===
 
In 1945, [[Ansel Adams]] invited Lange to teach at the first fine art photography department at the [[San Francisco Art Institute|California School of Fine Arts]] (CSFA), now known as San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI).<ref name="Dorothea Lange · SFMOMA"/> [[Imogen Cunningham]] and [[Minor White]] also joined the faculty.<ref>{{cite web |author=Robert Mix |url=https://www.verlang.com/sfbay0004ref_timeline_05.html |title=Vernacular Language North. SF Bay Area Timeline. ''Modernism (1930–1960)'' |publisher=Verlang.com |access-date=September 14, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120524094806/https://www.verlang.com/sfbay0004ref_timeline_05.html |archive-date=May 24, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
 
== ''Aperture'' and ''Life''==
In 1952, Lange co-founded the photography magazine ''[[Aperture (magazine)|Aperture]]''. In the mid-1950s, [[Life (magazine)|''Life'' magazine]] commissioned Lange and [[Pirkle Jones]] to shoot a documentary about the death of the town of [[Monticello, California]], and the subsequent displacement of its residents by the damming of [[Putah Creek]] to form [[Lake Berryessa]]. After ''Life'' decided not to run the piece, Lange devoted an entire issue of ''Aperture'' to the work.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Lange |first1=Dorothea |last2=Jones |first2=Pirkle |title=Death of a Valley |url=https://archive.aperture.org/search?QueryTerm=%22death%20of%20a%20valley%22&DocType=Image |date=Fall 1960 |magazine=Aperture |issn=0003-6420 |access-date=January 2, 2022 |archive-date=January 2, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220102063107/https://archive.aperture.org/search?QueryTerm=%22death%20of%20a%20valley%22&DocType=Image |url-status=live }}</ref> The collection was shown at the [[Art Institute of Chicago]] in 1960.<ref>{{cite news |last=Dingler |first=Nancy |title=Part 3—Fifty Years Since the Birth of the Monticello Dam |url=https://www.bellavistaranch.net/suisun_history/berryessa3-dingler.html |date=October 20, 2007 |work=Daily Republic |___location=Fairfield, CA |publisher=McNaughton Newspapers |access-date=February 18, 2022 |archive-date=May 6, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506161123/http://www.bellavistaranch.net/suisun_history/berryessa3-dingler.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
 
Another series for ''Life'', begun in 1954 and featuring the attorney Martin Pulich, grew out of Lange's interest in how poor people were defended in the court system, which by one account, grew out of personal experience associated with her brother's arrest and trial.<ref name="Emily Partridge">{{cite book |last1=Partridge |first1=Elizabeth |title=Dorothea Lange—a visual life |url=https://archive.org/details/dorothealangevis00lang |url-access=registration |date=1994 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |___location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=1-56098-350-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/dorothealangevis00lang/page/26 26]}}<!--|access-date=April 11, 2015--></ref>
 
== Death and legacy ==
[[File:Dorothea Lange - Unemployed lumber 01.jpg|thumb|Unemployed lumber worker goes with his wife to the bean harvest. Note social security number tattooed on his arm. Oregon.]]
Lange's health declined in the last decade of her life.<ref name="dl-ae-network" /> Among other conditions she suffered from was what later was identified as [[post-polio syndrome]].<ref name="Dorothea"/> She died of [[esophageal cancer]] on October 11, 1965, in San Francisco, at age seventy.<ref name="Susan Oliver/Cerritos College"/><ref>{{cite news |title=Dorothea Lange Is Dead at 70. Chronicled Dust Bowl Woes. Photographer for 50 Years Took Notable Pictures of 'Oakies' Exodus. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1965/10/14/archives/dorothea-lange-is-dead-at-70-chromcled-dust-bowl-woes-photographer.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 14, 1965 |access-date=June 29, 2008 |archive-date=July 22, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180722215600/https://www.nytimes.com/1965/10/14/archives/dorothea-lange-is-dead-at-70-chromcled-dust-bowl-woes-photographer.html?sq=Dorothea+Lange&scp=4&st=p |url-status=live }}</ref> She was survived by her second husband, Paul Taylor, two children, three stepchildren,<ref name="dl-nyt-aug2014">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/arts/television/pbs-documentary-looks-at-the-life-of-dorothea-lange.html|title=The Story Behind the Photos|author=Neil Genzlinger|newspaper=The New York Times|date=August 28, 2014|access-date=September 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170903151058/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/arts/television/pbs-documentary-looks-at-the-life-of-dorothea-lange.html?mcubz=0|archive-date=September 3, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
 
Three months after her death, the [[Museum of Modern Art]] in New York City mounted a retrospective of her work that Lange had helped to curate.<ref name="dl-pbs2014">{{cite web|url=https://www.thirteen.org/13pressroom/press-release/american-masters-dorothea-lange-grab-a-hunk-of-lightning/dorothea-lange-bio-and-timeline/|title=American Masters – Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning|publisher=PBS, thirteen.org|date=August 29, 2014|access-date=September 3, 2017|archive-date=September 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170903211145/http://www.thirteen.org/13pressroom/press-release/american-masters-dorothea-lange-grab-a-hunk-of-lightning/dorothea-lange-bio-and-timeline/|url-status=live}}</ref> It was MoMA's first retrospective [[solo exhibition]] of the works of a female photographer.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Dorothea Lange, grab a hunk of lightning : her lifetime in photography|last=Partridge | first=Elizabeth | author-link=Elizabeth Partridge|isbn=9781452122168 | publisher=Chronicle Books |___location=San Francisco|oclc=830030445 | date = November 5, 2013}}</ref> In February 2020, MoMA exhibited her work again, with the title "Dorothea Lange: Words and Pictures",<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5079|title=Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures {{!}} MoMA|website=The Museum of Modern Art|language=en|access-date=April 26, 2020|archive-date=April 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200418233742/https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5079|url-status=live}}</ref> prompting critic [[Jackson Arn]] to write that "the first thing" this exhibition "needs to do—and does quite well—is free her from the history [[textbook]]s where she's long been jailed."<ref name=":0" /> Contrasting her work with that of other twentieth century photographers such as [[Eugène Atget]] and [[André Kertész]] whose images "were in some sense context-proof, Lange's images tend to cry out for further information. Their aesthetic power is obviously bound up in the historical importance of their subjects, and usually that historical importance has had to be communicated through words." That characteristic has caused "art purists" and "political purists" alike to criticize Lange's work, which Arn argues is unfair: "The relationship between image and story", Arn notes, was often altered by Lange's employers as well as by government forces when her work did not suit their commercial purposes or undermined their political purposes.<ref name=":0" /> In his review of this exhibition, critic Brian Wallis also stressed the distortions in the "afterlife of photographs" that often went contrary to Lange's intentions.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://aperture.org/blog/dorothea-lange-moma-exhibition/|title=Dorothea Lange and the Afterlife of Photographs|date=April 24, 2020|website=Aperture Foundation NY|language=en-US|access-date=April 26, 2020|archive-date=April 25, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200425183939/https://aperture.org/blog/dorothea-lange-moma-exhibition/|url-status=live}}</ref> Finally, Jackson Arn situates Lange's work alongside other Depression-era artists such as [[Pearl S. Buck|Pearl Buck]], [[Margaret Mitchell]], [[Thornton Wilder]], [[John Steinbeck]], [[Frank Capra]], [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]], and [[Grant Wood]] in terms of their role creating a sense of the national "We".<ref name=":0" />
 
In 1984 Lange was inducted into the [[International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Dorothea Lange |url=https://iphf.org/inductees/dorothea-lange/ |access-date=July 23, 2022 |website=International Photography Hall of Fame |language=en-US |archive-date=July 23, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220723083846/https://iphf.org/inductees/dorothea-lange/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2003, Lange was inducted into the [[National Women's Hall of Fame]].<ref name="dl-womens hall">{{cite web|url=https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/dorothea-lange/|title=National Women's Hall of Fame: Dorothea Lange|publisher=womenofthehall.org|year=2003|access-date=September 2, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161105052345/https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/dorothea-lange/|archive-date=November 5, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2006, an elementary school was named in her honor in [[Nipomo, California]], near the site where she had photographed ''Migrant Mother''.<ref name="dl-elementary-2006">{{cite web|url=https://santamariatimes.com/news/san_luis_obispo_county_news/lange-elementary-s-th-anniversary-comes-with-gold-ribbon-award/article_2eca35f6-8895-59ed-beb8-7e903498ee58.html|title=Lange Elementary's 10th anniversary comes with Gold Ribbon Award|author=Mike Hodgson|work=Santa Maria Times|date=May 6, 2016|access-date=September 2, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170902190240/https://santamariatimes.com/news/san_luis_obispo_county_news/lange-elementary-s-th-anniversary-comes-with-gold-ribbon-award/article_2eca35f6-8895-59ed-beb8-7e903498ee58.html|archive-date=September 2, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2008, she was inducted into the [[California Hall of Fame]], located at [[The California Museum|The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts]]. Her son, Daniel Dixon, accepted the honor in her place.<ref name="dl-cal-halloffame">{{cite news|url=https://archive.vcstar.com/lifestyle/hall-of-fame-ceremony-lauds-state-achievers-in-many-fields-ep-372593735-352343621.html/|title=Hall of Fame ceremony lauds state achievers in many fields|author=Timm Herdt|newspaper=Ventura County Star|date=December 21, 2008|access-date=September 2, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170902185800/https://archive.vcstar.com/lifestyle/hall-of-fame-ceremony-lauds-state-achievers-in-many-fields-ep-372593735-352343621.html/|archive-date=September 2, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> In October 2018, Lange's hometown of Hoboken, New Jersey honored her with a mural depicting Lange and two other prominent women from Hoboken's history, [[Maria Pepe]] and [[Dorothy Blackwell McNeil|Dorothy McNeil]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://hmag.com/hoboken-celebrates-new-mural-northern-edge-celebrating-inspirational-women-mile-square-city/|title=Hoboken Celebrates New Mural on Northern Edge, Celebrating Inspirational Women of the Mile Square City|website=hNOW|date=October 26, 2018|access-date=December 26, 2018|archive-date=February 17, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190217142542/http://hmag.com/hoboken-celebrates-new-mural-northern-edge-celebrating-inspirational-women-mile-square-city/|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2019, [[Rafael Blanco (artist)|Rafael Blanco]] painted a mural of Lange outside of a photography building in Roseville, California.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Nelson|first=Heather L.|date=July 25, 2019|title=Spotlight On Roseville Mural Project|work=Style Magazine|url=https://www.stylemg.com/2019/07/25/211213/spotlight-on-roseville-mural-project|access-date=May 18, 2021|archive-date=May 13, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210513002621/https://www.stylemg.com/2019/07/25/211213/spotlight-on-roseville-mural-project|url-status=live}}</ref>
 
==Art market==
In May 2023, [[Sotheby's]] New York auctioned pieces from the [[Pier 24 Photography]]'s oversized 1940s-era print of ''Migrant Mother'' for double estimate $609,000.<ref>{{cite web | title=Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California | website=Sotheby's | date=April 30, 2023 | url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/pier-24-photography-from-the-pilara-family-foundation-sold-to-benefit-charitable-organizations-evening-sale/migrant-mother-nipomo-california?locale=en | access-date=May 14, 2023 | archive-date=May 3, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230503131518/https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/pier-24-photography-from-the-pilara-family-foundation-sold-to-benefit-charitable-organizations-evening-sale/migrant-mother-nipomo-california?locale=en | url-status=live }}</ref>
 
==Collections==
* [[Kalamazoo Institute of Arts]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kiarts.org/page.php?page_id=282|title=Inspired by Art : Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California &#124; Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA)|website=www.kiarts.org|access-date=May 6, 2020|archive-date=July 29, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729234314/https://www.kiarts.org/page.php?page_id=282|url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/artists/3373?locale=en|title=Dorothea Lange|website=The Museum of Modern Art|access-date=May 6, 2020|archive-date=July 30, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200730002320/https://www.moma.org/artists/3373?locale=en|url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[Whitney Museum of American Art]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://whitney.org/artists/13365|title=Dorothea Lange|website=whitney.org|access-date=May 6, 2020|archive-date=July 24, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200724001521/https://whitney.org/artists/13365|url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://collections.lacma.org/node/168203|title=Dorothea Lange &#124; LACMA Collections|website=collections.lacma.org|access-date=May 6, 2020|archive-date=July 30, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200730001624/https://collections.lacma.org/node/168203|url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[National Gallery of Victoria]] (NGV), Melbourne, Australia<ref name="m512">{{cite web | title=Artists | website=NGV | date=October 11, 1965 | url=https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/2191/ | access-date=August 30, 2024}}</ref>
* [[Oakland Museum of California]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dorothealange.museumca.org/|title=Dorothea Lange Digital Archive &#124; OMCA: Oakland Museum of CA &#124; OMCA: Oakland Museum of California &#124; Home|website=Dorothea Lange Digital Archive &#124; OMCA: Oakland Museum of CA|access-date=August 13, 2020|archive-date=August 15, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200815220052/https://dorothealange.museumca.org/|url-status=live}}</ref>
 
==See also==
* [[Walker Evans]]
* [[Marion Post Wolcott]]
* [[Martha Gellhorn]]
* [[Wheelers Primitive Baptist Church]]
 
== References ==
{{reflist}}
 
== Further reading ==
* {{Cite book|author=Dorothea Lange|author2=Paul Schuster Taylor|title=An American Exodus: A record of Human Erosion|publisher=Jean Michel Place|year=1999|orig-year=1939|isbn=978-2-85893-513-0|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/americanexodusre0000lang}}
* {{Cite book|author=Milton Meltzer|title=Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life|publisher= Syracuse University Press|year=1978|isbn=978-0-8156-0622-2}}
* {{Cite book|author=Linda Gordon|title=Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|year=2009|isbn=978-0-393-05730-0|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/dorothealangelif0000gord}}
* {{Cite book|editor1=Linda Gordon|editor2=Gary Y. Okihiro|year=2006|title=Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment|publisher=W. W. Norton and Company|___location=New York|isbn=0-393-33090-7|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/impoundeddorothe00unse}}
* {{Cite book|author=Linda Gordon|title=Encyclopedia of the Great Depression|publisher=Gale|year=2003|isbn=9780028656861|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofgr0000unse_w5q5}}
* {{Cite book|author=Anne Whiston Spirn|title=Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange's Photographs and Reports from the Field|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2008|isbn=9780226769844|url=https://archive.org/details/daringtolookdoro00spir}}
* {{Cite book|editor=Sam Stourdze|title=Dorothea Lange: The Human Face|publisher=NBC Editions|year=2005|___location=Paris|isbn=9782913986015}}
* {{Cite book|author=Neil Scott-Petrie|title=Dorothea Lange Color: Photography|publisher=CreateSpace|year=2014|isbn=9781495477157}}
* {{Cite book|title=Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing|last=Pardo|first=Alona|publisher=Prestel|year=2018|isbn=9783791357768}}
 
== External links ==
{{commons category|Dorothea Lange}}
*[https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/2191/ Dorothea Lange] at the [[National Gallery of Victoria]] (NGV), Melbourne
* [https://dorothealange.museumca.org/ Dorothea Lange Digital Archive at Oakland Museum of California]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071222091115/https://www.museumca.org/global/art/collections_dorothea_lange.html Oakland Museum of California – Dorothea Lange ]
* [https://archive.today/20130112150133/http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft3f59n5wt/ Online Archive of California: Guide to the Lange (Dorothea) Collection 1919–1965]
* {{MoMA artist|3373}}
* [https://www.gendellgallery.com/dorothea-lange.html Dorothea Lange – "A Photographers Journey"], at Gendell Gallery
* [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/lange64.htm 1964 Oral history interview with Lange] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101205220925/http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/lange64.htm |date=December 5, 2010 }}
* [https://depts.washington.edu/depress/Dorothea_Lange_collection.shtml Dorothea Lange Yakima Valley, Washington Collection], [[Great Depression in Washington State Project]]
* [https://lacrossehistory.org/literature/cached/DorotheaLange.pdf Photographic Equality] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210928100313/http://lacrossehistory.org/literature/cached/DorotheaLange.pdf |date=September 28, 2021 }}, by David J. Marcou, October 8, 2009
* [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dorothea-Lange Encyclopædia Britannica]
* [https://fristartmuseum.org/exhibition/dorothea-lange-politics-of-seeing/ Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing] 2019 exhibition at the Frist Art Museum
* [https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/dorothea-lange-seeing-people Dorothea Lange: Seeing People] a 2023-2024 exhibit at the National Gallery of Art
 
{{FSA Photographers}}
{{National Women's Hall of Fame}}
 
{{Subject bar|commons=yes|commons-search=Category:Dorothea Lange|q=yes|d=yes|d-search=Q230673}}
 
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lange, Dorothea}}
[[Category:1895 births]]
[[Category:1965 deaths]]
[[Category:Artists from Hoboken, New Jersey]]
[[Category:American people of German descent]]
[[Category:Artists from Oakland, California]]
[[Category:American portrait photographers]]
[[Category:American social realist artists]]
[[Category:American artists with disabilities]]
[[Category:San Francisco Art Institute faculty]]
[[Category:Social documentary photographers]]
[[Category:American documentary photographers]]
[[Category:Artists from California]]
[[Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer in California]]
[[Category:20th-century American women photographers]]
[[Category:20th-century American photographers]]
[[Category:American women photojournalists]]
[[Category:Polio survivors]]
[[Category:20th-century American women academics]]
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