“Migrant Mother” Dorothea
Lange, 1936
Unbelievably, Thompson’s story is as compelling as her portrait.
Just 32 years old when Lange approached her (”as if drawn by a
magnet,” Lange said). Thompson was a mother of seven who’d lost her
husband to tuberculosis. Stranded at a migratory labor farm in
Nipomo, Calif. her family sustained themselves on birds killed by
her kids and vegetables taken from a nearby field – as meager a
living as any earned by the other 2,500 workers there. The photo’s
impact was staggering. Reproduced in newspapers everywhere,
Thompson’s haunted face triggered an immediate public outcry,
quickly prompting politicos from the federal Resettlement
Administration to send food and supplies. Sadly, however, Thompson
and her family had already moved on, receiving nary a wedge of
government cheese for their high-profile misery. In fact, no one
knew the identity of the photographed woman until Thompson revealed
herself years later in a 1976 newspaper article.As
era-defining photographs go, “Migrant Mother” pretty much takes the
cake. For many, Florence Owens Thompson is the face of the Great
Depression, thanks to legendary educated and apprenticed
photojournalist Dorothea Lange. Lange captured the image while
visiting a dusty California pea-pickers’ camp in February 1936, and
in doing so, captured the resilience of a proud nation facing
desperate times.