Dorothea Lange and the FSA

Dorothea Lange was born in 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey. At age seven
she developed polio which left a limp in her right leg. Dorothea
suggested that this condition left her more sensitive to the pain of
others. She also lived an isolated childhood as one of the only
gentiles in an all Jewish neighborhood in New York. Later in life she
recalls many bleak moments alone with only memories of perhaps one
childhood friend. When she was 12, her father who was a successful
lawyer disappeared never to be heard from again.

Her mother had the foresight to support Dorothea's college studies of
photography at Columbia University in New York. Later, Dorothea
ambitiously set out on a trip around the world but ended up with no
money in San Francisco, California, where she started a small portrait
photography studio. She was hired by Roy Stryker to photograph for the
Farm Security Administration.

Newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt began the Farm Security
Administration in 1937. The FSA and its predecessor, the Resettlement
Administration (RA), were New Deal programs designed to assist poor
farmers during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Roy Emerson
Stryker was the head of a special photographic section in the RA and
FSA from 1935-1942. During its eight-year existence, the photographers
of the FSA created the 77,000 black-and-white documentary still
photographs for which it is world-famous. From 1939-1942, it also
created 644 color documentary still photographs.

Here's a picture of Dorothea on the road with her Graflex camera that
she used for her FSA gig. I'm pleased to see she is wearing comfortable
shoes.

So what makes Dorothea Lange a great photographer? She has a great
sense of contrast in her photos. There is a pleasing balance of darks
and lights. Her compositions are mostly solid and well-crafted
considering that these photos were made in the field and somewhat on
the fly. But it is her ability to photograph people that is her shining
achievement.

This girl is thin and perhaps malnourished. Her shirt is dirty and ill
fitting. Her face is dirty and her hair is messy. Her eyes are those of
a street-wise urchin that reveal both pain and furosity. The background
is a generic texture of perhaps dented metal or old cardboard that has
been patched together. The direct gaze at the camera is powerful and
confrontational. This photograph tells a story of abject poverty and
human survival. This girl has been beaten by the circumstances of her
life and yet she stands strong with a confident gaze.

At this point in Dorothea's life she is a married mother of two boys.
She is torn between staying home with her family and taking the
photographic gig of a lifetime. Perhaps this pain of being separated
from her family makes her more sensitive to the women and children she
is so famous for photographing.

Make no mistake, Dorothea photographed things other than people. Here
is a landscape photo she took of the desolate farmland of Oklahoma. She
is a good documentary photographer, literally setting the stage of the
great migration. This photo shows the flat terrain, with nothing but
scrub plants and not a vertical pole to be seen. The greyness of this
photo is significant. You can almost taste the dust.

The families would cram in as many people and possessions as they could
and leave for California. In this photo, Dorothea has chosen to crop
out the figure of perhaps the husband. We see a severed arm on the
right side. While this edit could be seen as clumsy or unfortunate, I
think she wanted to focus instead on the woman and children in the
picture.

Dorothea took other photos of entire families.
This photo is Norman Rockwell in it's storytelling capabilities. This
is a story of insult being laid upon injury. A family of refugees is
broken down by the side of the road on the way to California. The road
and the vanishing point of it on the horizon is as significant a
character in this photo as the down and out dad leaning on the back of
his broken vehicle.

Perhaps it is Dorothea's single photographs of women that are the best
and most monumental in their impact. Consider the photos below.

These are the faces of women who are down but not out. I also like how
most of these women look at the camera, at us, and at Dorothea. Their
eyes meet the camera straight on.

These photos are a fascinating glimpse into one of the most significant
periods in the United States in the 20th Century. Dorothea Lange
appears to have been in the right place at the right time to flourish.
The job of documenting the refugees of the dustbowl seems tailor-made
for her. Her interrupted around the world journey shows she had an urge
to travel. As a former portrait photographer she would have the nuts &
bolts skills of a professional photographer used to working with people
as subject matter. It's almost no surprise that later she goes on to
photograph the Japanese-Americans who are placed into concentration
camps in the USA during World War II.

When Dorothea photographs she connects all future viewers to her
subject. Isn't that the goal of all photographs and photographers? She
represents her subject matter honestly and with dignity and allows the
intense faces to tell the story of our history of the dustbowl, the
refugees, and how they go on to recover in California and in other
parts with new lives and jobs. Dorothea Lange and all of the other
photographers of the FSA deserve great credit for leaving us with this
great public record of how humans have the knack for revival, survival,
and reinvention. When Dorothea Lange died in 1965 in California, she
was recognized as one of the most significant photographers of her
generation.

-Mary Rayme