01 work, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, DOROTHEA LANGE's Migrant Mother , with Footnotes. #110

DOROTHEA LANGE) (1895-1965)

Migrant Mother (Florence Thompson) with child at her breast.

Silver print

10 1/2x13 1/2 inches (26.7x34.3 cm.)

Private collection

Florence Owens Thompson was born Florence Leona Christie on September 1, 1903, in Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. Both her parents were Cherokee. The family lived on a small farm in Indian Territory outside of Tahlequah. 

Seventeen-year-old Florence married Cleo Owens, a 23-year-old farmer's son from Stone County, Missouri, on February 14, 1921. They soon had their first daughter, Violet, followed by a second daughter, Viola, and a son. The family migrated west to California, where they worked in the saw mills and on the farms of the Sacramento Valley. By 1931, Florence was pregnant with her sixth child when her husband Cleo died of tuberculosis. Florence then worked in the fields and in restaurants to support her six children. In 1933 Florence had another child, returned to Oklahoma for a time, and then was joined by her parents as they migrated to Shafter, California. There Florence met Jim Hill, with whom she had three more children. 


The family settled in Modesto, California, in 1945. Well after World War II, Florence met and married hospital administrator George Thompson. This marriage brought her far greater financial security than she had previously enjoyed. More on Florence Owens Thompson

Dorothea Lange's images of Depression-era America made her one of the most acclaimed documentary photographers of the 20th century. She is remembered above all for revealing the plight of sharecroppers, displaced farmers and migrant workers in the 1930s, and her portrait of Florence Owens Thompson, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California(1936), has become an icon of the period. Since much of this work was carried out for a government body, the Farm Security Administration, it has been an unusual test case of American art being commissioned explicitly to drive government policy. After the Depression she went on to enjoy an illustrious career in photo-journalism during its hey-day, working for leading magazines such as Fortune and Life, and traveling widely throughout Asia, Latin America, and Egypt. She was instrumental in assembling the "Family of Man" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1959, a renowned celebration of struggling post-war humanity.

In 1941, Lange was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for excellence in photography. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, however, she gave up the award to take an assignment from the War Relocation Authority, recording the forced evacuation of Japanese Americans to internment camps. Her images of the community were so compelling and so critical of the situation that the Army impounded them; they were seen by no one—including Lange herself—for more than twenty years. More on Dorothea Lange

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints and 365 Days, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

I don't own any of these images - credit is always given when due unless it is unknown to me. if I post your images without your permission, please tell me.

I do not sell art, art prints, framed posters or reproductions. Ads are shown only to compensate the hosting expenses.

If you enjoyed this post, please share with friends and family.

Thank you for visiting my blog and also for liking its posts and pages.

Please note that the content of this post primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.