Migrant Mother: The Grapes Of Wrath By Florence Owens Thompson

Taking photographs may seem simple, but being a photographer is more than browsing through the viewfinder and pushing the exposure button. A photographer needs to know how to analyze the scene, speak in words that language cannot, and reach to the souls of people through a picture. During the Great Depression, many photographers captured the scenes of poverty and grief. However, there was only one photographer that truly captured the souls of Americans. According to Roy Stryker, Dorothea Lange "had the most sensitivity and the most rapport with people" (Stryker and Wood 41). Dorothea Lange was a phenomenal photographer that seized the hearts of people during the 1930s and beyond, and greatly affected the times of the Great Depression.

To begin with, Lange helped perceive the poor living conditions of the 1900’s through her photo of the migrant mother and three children. For instance, Lange with her photo of the migrant mother helped raise awareness, for the federal government gave the pea pickers camp, where the migrant mother had been distinguished, “twenty thousand pounds of food”. (Starr 48) The photo of the unfortunate pea pickers helped people realize how hopeless they really were. This creating a willingness to help. Showing Lange's photography ability to create empathy through a simple photo. In addition, the mother was so desperate for help that when the picture was taking place, “there she sat in the lean-to-tent” motionless. (Starr 47) The migrant mother was so

Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother is a photograph that documents a moment of distress within American history. The image works as a visual representation of suffering for those who were lucky enough not to live within the Dust Bowl region. To many it is uncertain if Lange’s image became an American Icon because of the struggle it presented or because of the eye capturing composition of it. However, with this image came forth the issue of a photos validity after photo manipulation, as Lange edited the image by removing the thumb of the mother who was a large subject. Despite the slight manipulation in Migrant Mother, the photograph still presents the situation truthfully, making the photograph function as both a work of art and a historical document.

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinback is a book with the main theme being the oversoul. The oversoul is the idea of an ultimate divine spirit that encompasses all human souls. In order to reach this theme, Steinback uses a variety of metaphors that all lead up to the theme of the oversoul.

The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of two types of ‘families’ in that the Joads are a factual one and the body of migrant workers as the other. The Joads are actual blood

Ellis Island was the gateway to America; the mass of immigrant’s were the subjects for his photographs. It is amazing that Hine was able to capture such powerful photographs considering the equipment and subject matter. Hine even commented on how it was a struggle at first to work the outdated equipment around the chaos of Ellis Island. “The camera was a modified box type with no swingback and when one wanted to make a vertical composition after doing a horizontal, he had to unscrew the box and turn it down onto its side.” Even though it was a struggle Lewis Hine’s photographs of Ellis Island capture a tender moment that most photographers could not capture. I find it amazing that Hine was able to talk people into stopping and allowing him to take their photo. With the people he stopped he was very good at capturing the drama of the scene. This can be seen in his photograph titled Italian family looking for lost baggage (1905 figure 1) This photograph like most of Hines’s from Ellis Island shows the uncertainty that immigrants experienced. The mother’s face in this image is what draws me in the most. The look of fear and strength within her face is so powerful. The composition of the photo keeps you moving though out the image and brings you back to the mother’s face. Another powerful photo from Ellis Island is Italian Madonna (1905 figure 2). The connection between mother and child is beautiful in this image. The relief on

Her most well know piece Migrant Mother which was of Florence Owens Thompson. The photograph shows a worn out mother with her two children's heads in her shoulders, and a baby in her lap.

A picture of a mother and her three children became one of the most recognizable photos in history. It came out of the Great Depression. In the black and white picture, a woman sits holding her infant, while resting her head in her right hand, with hopelessness displayed on her face. She has two older children leaning on her, their back facing the camera. Dorothea Lange, the photographer, worked for the federal government. Her assignment was to take photographs of rural poverty and capture the effects of it in her photographs. Migrant Mother did that. It was later discovered that the mother in the image is Florence Thompson, who died in 1983. The Migrant Mother image sparks numerous saddening feelings and dreary thoughts inside people due to

“They had no argument, no system, nothing but their numbers and their needs. When there was work for a man, ten men fought for it – fought with a low wage. If that fella’ll work for thirty cents, I’ll work for twenty-five”(Steinbeck). The renowned novel, The Grapes of Wrath, is a realistic portrayal of life and social conditions during the 30’s when the Dust Bowl swept across the nation, causing many to fall deeper into the depression. This caused many families to leave their homes in search of a safer and more hopeful land. The Grapes of Wrath follows Tom Joad, his family, and many other migrant farmers as they migrate from their Oklahoma farms into their new, hope filled life in California. The struggles that these characters endure

Lange was a professional who was able to come into the Farm Security Administration and make a photograph represent a national issue. “Despite the heavy, repetitious movements of field labor, her subjects often seemed unsettled, uncertain, disrupted, deracinated, and this was exactly what she wanted to communicate about the agricultural political economy.”(Gordon, 2006, p. 719). She was able to take the issues with field labor and bring the attention to to the pain and suffering of her migrant workers. Additionally, she wanted to highlight predominant themes within American culture. “Regeneration and renewal were popular themes in American Culture during the Great Depression, offering citizens convenient remedies for the sense of guilt and

The first photo I chose from our reading is “Migrant Mother, 1936” taken by Dorothea

Dorothea Lange was patient with her photography. She wanted to capture the hardships and pain the migrant Mexican labor farm workers were experiencing. When Lange saw something she want to photograph, she would quietly take her camera and capture the moment. But when she saw that they objected or tense up like people do when they take a picture, she would put away her camera and not take the picture. Lange would then wait until the workers were used to her. In all of her photographs she took, not one of the individuals were posed. She wanted to capture the truth of what it was like in the rural part of the depression. So Dorothea Lange took pictures of the rural places of California instead of the big cities.

Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother depicts destitute pea pickers in California, centering on Florence Owens Thompson, age 32, a mother of seven children, in Nipomo, California, March 1936.

Dorothea Lange is an experienced photographer, born on the 26th day of March 1895. Her works have been a source of insight for many people and this has proved very effective to contemporary photographers. There are many works that this woman did during her time and it is important to acknowledge them. Migrant Mother is one of these works and the applause that it has gotten from the viewers clearly portrays expertness at its best. The photo revolves around the life and family of one Florence Owens Williams and was taken in 1936 in California Florida. Going through the various elements of this photograph is effective in ensuring that one understands the deep concepts that revolve around it.

While many may doubt the power of a group of images possess to engender social change, thousands of social movements, federal policies, and personal revolutions have begun with and been supported by the click of a shutter. From the Great Depression-era of the 1920s to the modern day Black Lives Matter movement, photography has been used strategically by both the federal government and community organizers to shed light on systemic issues such as homelessness, poverty, child labor, racism, and hazardous working conditions. Lewis Hine, a photographer hired by the National Child Labor Committee, exposed the somber working conditions facing America’s youth, resulting in a wave of support for federal child labor regulations in the U.S. (Cade, 2013). Gordon Parks’ photos of black Americans from the 1940s to the 1970s made the struggle against racism relatable to TIME Magazine’s mostly white readers (Mason, 2016). Dorothea Lange’s photos of migrant workers and families humanized the consequences of the Great Depression and invoked the government to provide aid against starvation (Taylor, 2014). While each of these circumstances are very different, they all share one common thread: change was achieved by following a single topic or story in-depth over time. Through bringing the stories