Where is the migrant mother photo

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. The images were made using a Graflex camera. The original negatives are 4x5" film. It is not possible to determine on the basis of the negative numbers which were assigned later at the Resettlement Administration the order in which the photographs were taken.

Extended captions and supplementary textual files relating to this series in the FSA Written Records have not been found. Search this Guide Search. This guide discusses photographer Dorothea Lange's work, provides other views of Florence Owens Thompson the Migrant Mother , and lists additional resources.

Introduction Dorothea Lange, photographer. But Thompson was not white: she was a member of the Cherokee nation. Roy Stryker, who ran the Farm Security Administration, also seemed ignorant of this fact. There are so many other things to be done. I know it is their country and we took it away from them — to hell with it!

In fact, after her husband Cleo died of tuberculosis, she had an affair with a rich Oroville merchant who fathered one of her sons. Thompson was afraid his wealthy family would try to claim the child, so she took him back to Oklahoma to be raised by her parents.

Looking at the photograph, one does not get the sense that Thompson could move between classes in this way. Later, when given the opportunity, she told more about her life:. I left Oklahoma in and went to Oroville. I was twenty-eight years old, and I had five kids and one on the way.

Barely made enough each day to buy groceries that night. Surprisingly, Thompson follows up these comments with a literary reference:. When Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath about those people living under the bridge at Bakersfield — at one time we lived under that bridge. It was the same story. I had six children to feed at that time.

Lange identified them as pea-pickers camping in Nipomo. In fact, however, they were not staying there but merely passing through on their way to Watsonville. After the encounter with Lange, the husband and sons returned, and the family made it to Watsonville. Thompson also claimed that Lange promised that the photo would never be published. According to a article in the Modesto Bee , she felt betrayed when it appeared in newspapers a day or so after the encounter.

We both ran back to camp, and, of course, she was OK. We showed her the picture, and she just looked at it. Levine remarked:. The urge, whether conscious or not, to deprive people without any power of determination over their destiny, of any pleasure in their lives, of any dignity in their existence, knows no single part of the political spectrum. Any forms of contentment or self-respect, even cleanliness itself, have no place in this totality.

Yet, when the poor are crafting the narrative, things change. When I look at that photo of mother, it saddens me. We listened to the radio. In Shafter, we had friends and relatives visiting.

We also had our fun. Instead, it emphasizes the abject and forlorn aspects of poverty. Mother did. We all have good jobs and we all own our own homes. And none of us have ever been in trouble. Some people, Lange included, make the argument that the photographs, while perhaps invasive, served to improve the lot of the displaced people being photographed. Indeed, the photograph first appeared in newspapers accompanying a story about the starving pea pickers of Nipomo.

And thus, since the government subsequently brought food to the area, it is claimed that the image was successful. But the truth can be quite different. There is a widespread belief, especially on the left, that politically committed art has a redeeming social value. In effect, in this instance, the photographic object is talking back, prompting a complex discussion about the rights of the observed in a situation where journalists or writers use the images without permission.

Had Florence Owens Thompson actually wanted the photograph to display her deprived social status, her give and take with Lange — and others who subsequently appropriated the image — would have taken a much different form.

And, of course, there is also the very real issue of financial gain. None of the FSA photographers held copyright over their photographs, although Lange seems to have been one of the few allowed to develop her own pictures and keep copies of her work. IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections.

Visit the IIIF page to learn more. View manifest View in Mirador. Description During the Great Depression, government photographer Dorothea Lange took this picture at a migrant farmworkers' camp near Nipomo, California. Lange's brief caption recorded her impressions of the family's plight: "Destitute pea pickers The "migrant mother," anonymous for many years, was later identified as Oklahoma native Florence Thompson.

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