Dorothea Lange lived in California and the migrant mother picture is probably the most famous of the ones that Dorothea Lange produced. She was out in California documenting pea picking in March 1936. The weather was bad, the crops had frozen, people were not able to pick the damaged goods so they were living on what little money they had saved. They were living in outdoor camps. She drove by one of these camps and stopped and made some pictures, got back in her car and was part way home and thought, I didn't do what I was supposed to do.
I didn't get the picture. I didn't say what needed to be said. So she turned around and went back. The story that we got from migrant mother's grandson.
Migrant mother is the name that that picture that's so famous usually goes by. The story was that his grandmother, Florence Thompson, was camped near the edge of the road. Her husband and older son had gone to find whatever they needed to keep the car going.
Apparently they had poked a hole in the radiator, needed something to patch it up with so that they could... make it to the next farm, next place to pick crops. So Florence Thompson was back at the camp with the children, no cell phones, no way to communicate.
How are they going to find each other when the husband and son came walking up the road? So she was near the edge of the road, which was a very dangerous place to be. These migrant laborers were extremely unpopular in California. There was already a picking arrangement for the crops out there.
They didn't need these Dust Bowl Okies who were coming in from the drought areas of the United States. The farmers didn't want these new people coming in. The townspeople didn't want them camped on the side of the road, camped in their towns, didn't want to have to pay for their children to go to school.
So they were extremely unpopular. Police were hired. to clear these people out, make them move on to another part of the state or the county.
So by the edge of the road Florence Thompson was in a vulnerable situation. That's who Dorothea Lange photographed. She saw this woman with several small children, a teenage daughter and some younger children, and began working her way up to her.
Apparently, Dorothea Lange was very good. at engaging people in conversation and then just sort of disappearing into the atmosphere. She talked about herself as becoming invisible as she worked. She would very slowly...
talked to the people about what was happening, what straits they were in, how they fed themselves, that kind of thing. And then they would sort of forget about her and she would begin making pictures. That's what she did with Florence Thompson. There's a series of pictures showing the teenage girl out in front of their tent, sitting on a chair, the mother and the younger children behind her. And then gradually she gets closer and closer and makes the famous photograph.
And she said she knew as soon as she had made it that that's what she needed to accomplish and went back home.