The bigger story behind this photograph

Summary

This video explores the story behind Dorothea Lange's iconic 'Migrant Mother' photograph, capturing Florence Thompson during the Great Depression. It delves into the lives of both women, their journeys shaped by geography, government programs, and climate, culminating in their chance meeting in Nipomo, California. The narrative challenges the simplified Okie narrative, highlighting the broader impact of the Depression and Dust Bowl on migration. Despite the photo's widespread use and Thompson's subsequent obscurity, the image endures as a testament to their resilience and the power of photography to document history.

Takeaways

• 📸 The iconic 'Migrant Mother' photograph by Dorothea Lange captures a moment in history, representing not just one woman but two: Lange and her subject, Florence Thompson.
• 🌾 Florence Thompson's family followed migratory labor patterns, moving across California for seasonal work, a system influenced by the state's diverse climate and harvest times.
• 🏞️ The Great Depression and Dust Bowl era led to significant migration to California, including many from Oklahoma, known as 'Okies', though Thompson's Cherokee heritage provided a distinct narrative.
• 🔭 Dorothea Lange's personal struggles with polio and her experiences with poverty influenced her empathetic approach to documenting the lives of migrant workers.
• 💼 Lange's marriage to agricultural economist Paul S. Taylor, who authored a study on migration, further connected her to the subject matter she was photographing.
• 🏭 Lange's work was initially commissioned by government agencies during the New Deal era to document and advocate for better conditions for agricultural workers.
• 🚘 The serendipitous meeting between Lange and Thompson occurred when Thompson's car broke down in Nipomo, a town known for pea harvesting, during a cold and rainy February.
• 📷 Lange's photographic technique often focused on capturing one face directly, creating an intimate and personal connection with the subject, as seen in her 'Migrant Mother' photo.
• 💭 Despite the widespread publication and impact of the 'Migrant Mother' image, Thompson and her family did not benefit directly from the attention, and her identity remained unknown for decades.
• 🌐 The story behind the 'Migrant Mother' photo underscores the importance of considering the historical and geographical context that shapes individual lives and the broader narrative of an era.

Q & A

Who are the two women bound together by the famous photograph from the Great Depression?

The two women are Dorothea Lange, the photographer, and Florence Thompson, the subject of the photograph.

What significant event in American history led to the Cherokee displacement that Florence Thompson's family was a part of?

The Cherokee displacement was a result of the Indian Removal Act, often referred to as the Trail of Tears.

Why did Florence Thompson and her family migrate to California?

They migrated to California to participate in the existing system of seasonal labor, traveling through the state during harvest times.

What role did California's climate play in the migration patterns of agricultural workers like Florence Thompson?

California's climate caused the movement of tens of thousands of people up and down the state due to peak seasonal labor requirements occurring at different times in various regions.

How did Dorothea Lange's early life experiences and her battle with polio influence her photography?

Lange's experiences with polio and her awareness of urban poverty from her time in the Lower East Side influenced her to create real, true, and individual portrait photographs.

What was the impact of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl on Dorothea Lange's career?

The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl damaged her studio portraiture business but shifted her focus towards documenting poverty and the struggles of migrant workers.

Why did the government hire Dorothea Lange to take photographs of migrant workers?

Lange was hired to document the conditions of migrant workers as part of a New Deal era attempt to secure funding for programs that would help agricultural workers.

What was the significance of the photograph 'Migrant Mother' in the context of the Great Depression?

The photograph 'Migrant Mother' became an iconic representation of the struggles faced by migrant workers during the Great Depression, raising awareness and potentially influencing policy and public perception.

Why was Florence Thompson's identity not known for decades after the photograph was taken?

Florence Thompson's identity was not immediately known because the government provided the photos for free, leading to widespread publication without proper identification, and her story was not fully documented until later.

What was the outcome for Florence Thompson and her family after the photograph was published?

Despite the photograph receiving widespread attention and resources being sent to Nipomo, Thompson and her family had already left the area, and they did not receive any direct assistance from the publicity.

Outlines

00:00

📸 The Iconic 'Migrant Mother' Photo and Its Dual History

This paragraph introduces the story behind the famous 'Migrant Mother' photograph taken by Dorothea Lange during the Great Depression. It highlights the intertwined fates of Lange and her subject, Florence Thompson, connected by a photo taken in Nipomo, California. The paragraph sets the stage for exploring the broader context of government programs, climate, and the search for a home away from the Dust Bowl that led to their paths crossing. It also delves into Florence Thompson's background, her Cherokee heritage, and the migratory labor patterns that were established before the Depression, influenced by California's climate and the seasonal demands of agricultural work.

05:00

🌟 Dorothea Lange: The Photographer and Her Journey

This section delves into Dorothea Lange's personal story, emphasizing her outsider status and the challenges she faced, including polio and a difficult family life. It contrasts her experiences with those of Florence Thompson, showing that despite different circumstances, both women were affected by economic and geographical factors. The paragraph discusses Lange's evolution as a photographer, moving from studio portraits to documenting the realities of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. It also touches on her marriage to agricultural economist Paul S. Taylor and how their combined interests led to Lange's work documenting migrant workers, which was both a form of documentation and a means to advocate for government support for these workers.

10:07

🔍 The Convergence of Two Lives and the Creation of an Icon

The final paragraph brings together the narratives of Dorothea Lange and Florence Thompson, detailing how they both ended up in Nipomo during the harsh winter of 1936. It describes the circumstances that led to the taking of the 'Migrant Mother' photograph, including Thompson's family's car breaking down and the impact of the cold and rain on the pea picking season. The paragraph also discusses Lange's decision to turn back and document the pea picker's camp, which resulted in the iconic image. It reflects on the aftermath of the photograph's publication, the misattributions and misunderstandings that followed, and the long-term effects on Thompson's life. The paragraph concludes by arguing for the enduring significance of the image as a historical and geographical marker of two women's resilience and the power of a single moment captured in time.

Keywords

💡Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that lasted from 1929 to the late 1930s. It began in the United States after the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, also known as Black Tuesday. The video script refers to this period as a backdrop to the story of Florence Thompson, who became a symbol of the hardships faced by many during this time. The photograph taken by Dorothea Lange of Thompson and her children is one of the most enduring images of the Great Depression, capturing the despair and poverty of the era.

💡Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange was an American photographer most famous for her documentary photography of the Great Depression, particularly the iconic 'Migrant Mother' photo. In the script, Lange is depicted as a photographer who, through her work, aimed to document and bring attention to the struggles of migrant workers and the poor during the Great Depression. Her photography, including the image of Florence Thompson, played a significant role in shaping public perception and policy regarding the plight of migrant workers.

💡Florence Thompson

Florence Thompson was the subject of Dorothea Lange's famous 'Migrant Mother' photograph. As described in the script, Thompson was a mother who, along with her children, was captured in one of the most iconic images of the Great Depression. The photograph symbolizes the hardship and resilience of those affected by the economic downturn. Thompson's story, as told in the video, is one of displacement, migration, and the search for a better life, which was a common narrative for many during that time.

💡Migratory labor

Migratory labor refers to the seasonal movement of workers, often in agriculture, to find work. In the context of the video, it describes the pattern of workers like Florence Thompson who traveled throughout California during different harvest seasons. This labor pattern was driven by the need for peak seasonal labor at different times in various agricultural regions, as illustrated by the paper from 1938 mentioned in the script.

💡Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. It was a significant factor that drove migration, as poor farming techniques and drought led to massive dust storms, forcing many, like those from Oklahoma, to move to areas like California in search of better living conditions. The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression roughly overlapped and both contributed to the migration patterns discussed in the video.

💡Nipomo

Nipomo is a town in California where the famous 'Migrant Mother' photograph was taken. As described in the script, it was a 'pea harvest nomad city' and the location of one of the camps where migrant workers like Florence Thompson and her family stayed. The cold and flooded conditions of the camp in Nipomo during February 1936 are highlighted in the video as a stark illustration of the living conditions faced by migrant workers.

💡Paul S. Taylor

Paul S. Taylor was an agricultural economist whose work is mentioned in the script in relation to the study of migratory labor patterns. He wrote a paper in 1938 that provided an account of these patterns, which is referenced in the video. Taylor later married Dorothea Lange, and their combined interests in photography and agricultural economics likely influenced Lange's photographic documentation of the migrant worker camps.

💡New Deal

The New Deal refers to a series of programs and projects instituted during the Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It aimed to provide relief, recovery, and reform to the American people. In the video, the New Deal is mentioned in the context of government programs that attempted to help agricultural workers through initiatives like the establishment of camps for migrant workers. Dorothea Lange's photography was used as a form of documentation and propaganda to secure funding for these programs.

💡Okies

The term 'Okies' was used to describe the poor farmers, many of whom were from Oklahoma, who migrated to California during the Dust Bowl. In the video, the script notes that by 1936, so many Oklahomans had moved to California that they were referred to as Okies. This term is used to highlight the large-scale migration that occurred during this period and the challenges faced by these migrants, including Florence Thompson.

💡Propaganda

In the context of the video, propaganda refers to the use of information, often biased or misleading, to promote a particular political cause or point of view. Dorothea Lange's photographs, including the 'Migrant Mother' image, served a dual purpose: they documented the realities of migrant workers' lives and also functioned as a form of propaganda to advocate for government support and funding for programs aimed at assisting these workers.

Highlights

Dorothea Lange's famous photograph 'Migrant Mother' was taken in Nipomo, California, capturing a moment during the Great Depression.

The photograph is significant not only for its subject, Florence Thompson, but also for Lange's role in documenting the era.

Florence Thompson's background as a Cherokee from Oklahoma ties her to a history of displacement and migration.

Thompson's family followed migratory labor patterns, moving with the harvest seasons due to California's climate.

The Great Depression and Dust Bowl led to increased migration to California, including a significant number of Oklahomans known as 'Okies'.

Dorothea Lange was influenced by her experiences with polio and her upbringing in New York, which shaped her perspective on poverty.

Lange's work was initially in studio portraiture, but she later turned her focus to documenting the realities of the Great Depression.

Her marriage to agricultural economist Paul S. Taylor influenced her work, as Taylor studied the migration patterns of agricultural laborers.

Lange's photographs were used to advocate for government programs aimed at supporting migrant workers.

The 'Migrant Mother' photograph was taken during a time of hardship for Thompson, whose family was affected by the economic conditions of the 1930s.

The photograph's widespread publication brought attention and aid to Nipomo, but Thompson and her family had already moved on.

The story behind the 'Migrant Mother' photo is complex, with Thompson's identity remaining unknown for decades.

Despite the photograph's fame, Thompson did not receive any financial benefit from its use.

The photograph's enduring impact is a testament to the power of documentary photography to capture historical moments.

The video discusses the importance of geography and history in understanding the context of the 'Migrant Mother' photograph.

The video concludes by emphasizing the individual stories and perseverance of both Lange and Thompson.

The video creator offers additional resources and a newsletter for further exploration of the topic.

Transcripts

In a tent in Nipomo, California,  a mother waited with her children  

and became the subject of one of the  most famous photographs of the Great  

Depression. But this photograph is  not the story of one woman, but two.

Dorothea Lange and her subject, Florence  Thompson, were bound together by that photograph,  

set at a “pea harvest nomad city”  in a California town called Nipomo.

But how these two women ended up at the same  camp, in the rain, in the cold of February,  

is a story not just about a series of photos,  but about government programs and climate,  

the search for a home away from the dust, and  two intersecting paths that changed history.

Florence Thompson was born in 1903 in the  Cherokee territory of Tahlequah, Oklahoma,  

near the Arkansas border. That itself was  a result of Cherokee displacement from the  

southeastern United States due to the Indian  Removal Act, often known as the Trail of Tears.  

Tahlequah became the Cherokee National Capital  long before the Great Depression and Dust Bowl.

In 1925, Thompson and her  family emigrated to California,  

working up and down the state in Oroville,  Porterville, and Merced Falls. They entered  

an existing system in which workers  traveled through California during the  

harvest. This paper from 1938 is a great account.  It describes the typical migratory labor pattern.

Now remember the author, Paul S. Taylor's, name,  because it will show up again. The thing driving  

this migration is that peak seasonal  labor requirements occur at different  

times. In Southern California, February and  March and September and October were key for  

the harvest. In the San Joaquin Valley,  it was August, September, and October.

In the Sacramento Valley, May and  June. In the valleys of the coast,  

May to October. So it is California's  climate, right, that is causing this  

movement of tens of thousands of people up  and down California. And without that climate,  

Florence Thompson and her family, they  aren't taking the same path, either.

You can follow this map that Taylor made  by following 50 families of agricultural  

laborers. This one focuses on white  families. The wider the line is,  

the more frequently that route was traveled  during the year. The main difference from the  

Mexican families that Taylor followed is that  white families often traveled further north.

Marysville for peaches.  South for grapes and cotton.

Thompson occasionally took other jobs  like waitressing, but she and her family,  

they were swept up in this like a current.  Even though this was all before the Depression  

and the Dust Bowl, the migratory labor  patterns were pretty established. By 1931,  

Thompson had five children and was pregnant  with a sixth child when her husband died.

She shortly returned to Oklahoma before moving  back to California and Shafter. Working alongside  

potato farmers. She remarried, and she and  her family were working in the Imperial  

Valley in 1936, when they started north toward  Watsonville, hoping to find work picking lettuce.

Dorothea Lange was born eight years before  Florence Thompson in 1895, across the country,  

in Hoboken, New Jersey. She contracted polio  at seven, which gave her a limp that she later  

recorded in these photographs of her polio  damaged foot. Schooled in the Lower East Side  

in Manhattan, she quickly became aware  of tenement housing and urban poverty.

Her proximity to New York, however, it also meant  that she was close to world class photographers,  

like her employer, Arnold Genthe, who was a  star name in portraiture for photographs like  

this one of dancer Isadore Duncan. Genta  had come to New York from San Francisco,  

where he documented Chinatown  in photographs like these.

And San Francisco is where Lange ended up. She  took studio portraits of the wealthy, much like  

Genthe had. But from her Sutter Street studio, she  published an artist’s statement that would stay  

familiar: “Let's have portrait photographs  that are real, and true, and individual.”

I want to pause here to underscore Lange's  personal story, because it's necessary  

to understand how geography brought  her to take that picture in Nipomo.

Here she is in 1935, a year before Migrant Mother.  I'm giving you all these personal details to show  

you that Lange wasn't just a poverty tourist.  She was always an outsider. Her life might have  

been a little bit easier than Thompson's,  but it wasn't a walk in the park. I mean,  

she contracted polio young, she wasn't  born rich, her father left her family.

She had it hard, and that makes her  accomplishments more impressive. It  

also shows that she didn't have wealth  to insulate her from the ways that  

geography and the economy would change her life.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression  and the Dust Bowl roughly overlapped.

Both drove migration. Poor farming  techniques and drought had created  

massive dust storms like this one. All these  trends drove migrants to California. By 1936,  

so many Oklahomans had moved to California  that they were referred to as Okies. Still,  

Thompson was more like a Venn diagram with these  Okies— she overlapped in being from Oklahoma,  

but as a Cherokee from a different part of the  state, she had her own unique path to California.

As this big change was happening in society,  Lange turned her camera outside her studio.  

She'd taken non studio portraits before,  like this one in Taos, New Mexico, in 1931.  

But her home in San Francisco put her near many  shanty towns and massive unemployment, like the  

White Angel Breadline, where thousands received  care daily, and where she took this photograph.

Note the composition: one face  forward, most of the rest turned away.

Subsequent photographs in the next few years  covered depression era poverty. The Depression and  

Dust Bowl damaged her studio portraiture business,  but they changed her focus and changed her life.  

She divorced her first husband and married Paul  S.Taylor in 1935, the agricultural economist who,  

if you remember, would go on to write  that migration study. It's from 1938.

Their marriage was a true combination of  attraction to each other and each other's work.  

He loved this city woman's photography, and she  loved the agricultural economist's focus. Lange  

was hired for a new job, working originally for  the state, and then various government agencies.

This was a New Deal era attempt to help  the agricultural worker in a ton of ways,  

including camps for migrant workers. This map  shows the idea. These proposed camps would,  

in theory, help migrant workers  along common agricultural routes,  

just like the ones that Taylor studied. Lane's  photographs were a form of documentation,  

but also a kind of propaganda to  secure funding for these programs.

Lange herself noted in 1935 that all races  served the crops in California. Filipinos,  

whites, blacks, and Mexicans were all migrant  workers. Many of the so-called Okies, however,  

were white, and that narrative dominated because  

it sold easier to the American public at  large and bureaucrats back in Washington.

This also ran parallel to the forced  repatriation of hundreds of thousands  

of Mexican laborers that was occurring  around the same time. Lange traveled up  

and down the map, finding sympathetic  field workers in Riverside County,  

showing camps in Marysville, and watching  the children who lived through it.

And so all of this, all of these stories,  they were leading her up and down California,  

searching for the photograph that  would make the best case for more help.

Thompson said that in February 1936, she and  her family were traveling north on Highway 101  

on their way to Watsonville. They stopped  in Nipomo, the car's timing chain broke,  

a place where peas grew. But the  nation was held in a cold grip,  

and there had been enough rain to halt  picking. The camp was cold and flooded.

That month, Lange had been in L. A.  recording subsistence homesteads,  

and Bakersfield documenting squatters. She  traveled up Highway 101, just as Thompson had,  

which she had photographed too. She  was en route to her home in Berkeley,  

when she saw a sign for a pea picker's camp. She  passed it. Twenty miles later, she turned back.

That year, she found other pea pickers, like  these ones, who recorded their words. This life  

is simplicity. But this time, Lane wrote about  the peapickers homes half a mile off Highway 101,  

at Nipomo, one of six camps. She took  a picture. She went closer. And closer.

And like her photograph of a bread line, made  sure that one face was turned toward her.

And then Dorothea Lange and  Florence Thompson. Both drove away.

The rest of this story, you could argue  that it's kind of a mess. The immediate  

stripping of Thompson from the picture  of the migrant mother. Lange sent off  

the photo and because the government  was providing these photos for free,  

it got published everywhere. The list  of publications was like a trophy case.

Money and resources were sent to Nipomo, but  Thompson and her family were long gone. They had  

fixed the car and gone up near Watsonville. The  captions that accompanied the picture were often  

wrong. In Survey Graphic, they said that they had  sold the very tent that she was sitting in, and in  

later versions of the work, her thumb was removed  because Lange considered it an obvious flaw.

Thompson's identity wasn't even  known until decades later. And  

she was confused why she hadn't seen a  penny from the picture. But even with  

that semi-tragic epilogue, I would argue  that this image, it is still meaningful.

Right now, it is over-farmed. It is over-grazed.

There is nothing real left for us to  grab onto. But it is the history and  

the geography that save us from that, that  save her from the banality of symbolism.

Rather than seeing an icon, once we know the story  behind this photo, we can see a moment again.  

We can see two women and how they were brought  together by geography and history, but also by  

their individual perseverance to a half-frozen  pea field in Nipomo in late February, 1936.

And with the help of children, they made sure  that moment was one that we would still remember.

Thank you for watching. Thank you for being  here. This video stands on the shoulders of  

some incredible books and other resources that  I've linked in the description below. You will  

also find an article that I've written  getting a little more into Thompson's  

life itself. I'm so focused on the geography  here, but I wanted to give you a kind of,  

summary of her life and how this  picture ended up affecting it.

You will find that in my newsletter.  Every time I publish a video,  

I send out a newsletter that is sort of  announcing the video, but also giving you  

an article about something that I couldn't fit  into the story that I still found fascinating.  

And so that's what I have for you this week. It is  completely free to subscribe to this newsletter.

Paid subscribers can then also check out  a reaction video and chat and have stuff  

like that. We are well on our way to  2,000 subscribers to this newsletter  

and it's just a way for me to give  you more information to kind of stay  

connected and if I do anything else in  the future you'll be the first to know.

So thank you for considering  subscribing to that. Other than that,  

I would love to know what you think about  this photograph and about the history.  

There's a lot to get into. I will be responding  to the comments with any research that I found  

along the way. And otherwise, thank you for  watching and I'll see you in the next video.