Editing Dorothea Lange (section)

== Career ==

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 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.

[[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]]. ]]

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>

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 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/>

===Resettlement Administration===

[[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.

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.

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:

{{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/episodes/dorothea-lange/watch-full-film-dorothea-lange-grab-a-hunk-of-lightning/3260/|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>

===Japanese American internment===

[[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]]
[[File:Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, California. Grandfather and grandson of Japanese ancestry at . . . - NARA - 537994.jpg|thumb|Grandfather and grandson at [[Manzanar]] Relocation Center]]
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).

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>