Sepia Saturday: Dorothea Lange and the Migrant Mother Images
During the Great Depression, the federal government created the Farm Security Administration, an agency intended to improve the lot of poor farmers and their families. One program was designed to buy out small, unproductive farms and introducing more efficient collective farms. Fueled by demands from Congress, loans were eventually made available to help tenant farmers purchase land of their own. To emphasize the needs of the rural poor, the FSA hired a cadre of photographers to make "public relations" photographs. One of these photographers was a young woman named Dorothea Lange. She traveled around the country, snapping images of agricultural workers who had little to nothing in terms of income and financial security, like this ex-tenant farmer in Imperial Valley, California who had a small' "relief grant." Her photographs of a migrant worker/mother are images of iconic standing. This woman was a 32-year old mo...