Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was born on May 26, 1895 in New Jersey. She had polio and it made one of her legs smaller than the other. When she would walk she limped and her mom would tell her to straighten up when they were around people so they didn't get embarrassed. She graduated from Wadleigh High School in Harlem New York and her mom wanted her to become a teacher just like all the other girls. Dorothea went to Training school to become a teacher but that was her moms' dream. She wanted to become a photographer so she went to the local photography shop to see if she could get a job and they gave her a job that day.
Dorothea was one of the first women to become well known doing documentary photography during the Great Depression and WWII. She took a lot of her pictures during the Great depression but their were also some famous ones during WWII. During the Great Depression she took pictures of unemployed workers and segregation such as movie theatres for colored people and some for only whites and of course they didn't make the colored ones very nice compared to the whites' movie theatres. This went along with everything not just movie theatres but also drinking fountains and bathrooms. Dorothea took note of this in her documentary writing about her pictures. The reason for this was because she wanted people to know that minorities are having a harder time in the depression than white Americans because they couldn't get a job as easy or even go to the bathroom as easy.
She ended up opening her own portrait studio and joined a camera club. She met a western wilderness painter named Maynard Dixon and married him on March 21, 1920. They had two children Daniel Rhoades and John Eaglefeather. Maynard and Dorothea went around the country taking photographs and painting pictures of the wilderness. Dorothea all of a sudden didn't want to take pictures of the wilderness she wanted to take pictures of people.
Dorothea got divorced and married Paul Taylor which was the person she took most of her famous pictures with. She took her most famous picture the "Migrant Mother" at a pea picker farm where all the people were starving. Because of the Migrant Mother picture twenty thousand pounds of food was sent to the pea picker farm.
I think Dorothea helped a lot of people get through the depression by sending her pictures to the right people and those people sending food and necessities. She also probably helped other women see that they can do more than just be a teacher or a nurse.
Sources:
http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/byrnes-famous/DOROTHEA.html
http://www.biography.com/people/dorothea-lange-9372993
www.shu.edu/news/article/389664
Comments
Well done!