Resettlement Administration: Film Analysis

In 1890, Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant worked as a police reporter and photographic journalist in New York City. “How the Other Half Lives,” prompted legislative reforms, focused attention on the desperate lives of poor urban immigrants and left an enduring mark on the history of documentary photography.” (NY TIMES). During this time, America was going through social and economic stress due to rapid industrialization. It was a time full of greed and neglect from the wealthier class leaving the middle and poor class helpless and suffering day to day. Jacob Riis used his photography to document real lives that were being affected by this crisis and presented these photos to the public to open their eyes to what was going on. The economy, society, and government started to be controlled by large corporations who were owned by immigrants filled with greed and materialism. With this industrialization, Riis documented the over worked lower class who were given low wages and placed in overpriced slums. The real world did not notice the truth behind this madness until Riis’s photography opened their eyes.

She tried to ignore the sign and drive on, but after twenty miles she was compelled to return to the camp, “following instinct, not reason.” She shot six photographs in a very short period of time of the woman and members of her family, starting at a distance and working her way closer and closer after the fashion of a portrait photographer. The one thing I love about the images of Lange is they are not posed. She truly wanted others to see what she was seeing through her lens. She was there to record and to report, but what made her different is that she did it with a compassionate eye. Lange said she had to get her camera to register the things that were more important than how poor the Migrants were, she wanted her camera to also register their pride, strength, and their spirit. I believe she shows this in the image above. The young lady does not hide her face in shame as the images were being taken, even as Lange moves in closer to get more detailed images. Her pride keeps her head up, the strength to carry on for her children or they will starve. This is what Dorathea Lange shows in her images. Dorothea took her images with great thought. She had to work to get the message through the lens of something other than these are poor people. She always captured the correct amount of light and shadow, and even the angles and distance to tell

The Great Depression was a time of poverty, unemployment, stress, frustration, and of course depression. During that era, many had known and heard about the depression. It wasn’t until a photojournalist, Dorothea Lange, had taken the pictures of a defeated worn out mother, that people had an accurate visual of the Depression. The picture was known as the Migrant Mother. Seeing it with their eyes, many saw a new different perspective of that era.

New photographers and journalists began to document imagery of everyday life and the hardship through the Dustbowl and The Great Depression. A famous photographer is Dorothea Lange. One picture that is famous by her is called "Migrant Mother," showed a gaunt young widow holding her three daughters, her careworn face suggesting that hope was running out. Dorothea Lange was working under Working under Roy Stryker, primarily under the Farm Security Administration (FSA), a small group of talented photographers, including Walker Evans, Marion Post Wolcott, John Vachon, Russell Lee, and Arthur Rothstein, documented the human, natural, and economic devastation of the region in photographs printed in federal publications as well as in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines. Another famous documentor portraying the world around us was John Steinbeck. He wrote a set of newspaper articles that year depicting in similar terms what Dorothea Lange’s photographs show. (Gregory,

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

Photography is everywhere in this World today. Advancements throughout the 1930’s where emotions were extremely impacted, helped to set the base for future advancements and ideas that would lie ahead for generations to come. The impact that photography had on the United States during the Great Depression in a time of dire struggle was unlike any other. This movement was able to document images that may never be able to be matched again in its uniqueness and emotional

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.

Before starting this project, I knew very little about photography, photographers, or exactly how much impact photographical images have had on our society. I have never taken a photography class, or researched too in depth about specific pictures or photographers. This project has allowed me to delve deeper into the world of photography in order to understand just how much influence pictures can have over society’s beliefs, emotions, and understandings’. I have have chosen two highly influential photographers, Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange, who I have found to both resonate with me and perfectly capture human emotions in way that moves others.

It consists of an array of artworks, pictures, and photographs along with verbal description of the various conditions of the working class during the great depression starting from the events which led to various riots and violent acts by the working class and a clash between the capitalist class, government, and the working class (M. Elizabeth Boone, 2006). It depicts the California Labor School’s establishment; workers’ disenfranchisement from the service economy; movement of farm workers; and the demographics of the workers changing. The photographs depicted are of Tina Modotti, Otto Hagel, Dorothea Lange, and Emmanuel Joseph while paintings are of Hung Liu and Diego Rivera. The book consists of five chapters taking the audience through the journey of the working class during the great depression (M. Elizabeth Boone,

“Arbeit macht frei” (Work makes you free) was plastered against famous World War II camps, like Auschwitz, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen. This motto quickly became a symbol of irony to every prisoner held captive. During World War II, did work really make them free? Displaced person camps were an attempt to heal displaced people, but it lacked the resources and support they needed. World War II left a deep scratch on many displaced people. So, they resorted to camps and tried to escape to Palestine. The attempts to rebuild society were not as easy as the world thought it would be.

Dorothea Lange became a well-known photographer with pictures of the Dust Bowl. According to Garland 2003 her photography obtained government relief for Dust Bowl migrants because she “visually demonstrated the hunger, poverty, hardship, and the plight of the migrants.”

The photograph Migrant Mother was optimistic but at the same time depicted the sadness and deprivation going on in the United States. Iversen Margaret stated that photographs that characterize, but also generalize include the texture of our experiences of the world, punctuated as it is with holes leading don to the unconscious (Iversen, 2004, p 55-57). The reason why her photographs were depicted in that manner were because it is what she saw in her world. She wanted to call attention to the subjects that represented what she felt. She wanted to call attention to them as worthier that the conditions they were in while calling for Americans to the incompleteness of American Democracy. How democracy had failed them and need to answer to the

However, some may argue that this view of America’s generous and supportive personality is delusional. Robert Galbraith chooses to spotlight the new era of American disregard for others with his two photographs American Poverty and an untitled work that shows a homeless man hauling his possessions in a shopping cart in a rich suburb of San Francisco. In American Poverty, an impoverished man stands in the foreground, carrying a small American flag and a Starbucks cup, presumably to collect money in. The man seems to be the center of a magnetic field, repulsing everyone away, as there’s no visible body within a 5 feet radius of him. His face is furrowed and his eyes face not the photographer, nor the people walking by, but the ground, as if he is embarrassed, abandoned, and alone in his situation – in fact, the only support he seems to be getting is from the pole that he’s using as back support. The Starbucks cup and the flag that he totes in his hands are two of the most

In “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger, an English art critic, argues that images are important for the present-day by saying, “No other kind of relic or text from the past can offer such direct testimony about the world which surrounded other people at other times. In this respect images are more precise and richer literature” (10). John Berger allowed others to see the true meaning behind certain art pieces in “Ways of Seeing”. Images and art show what people experienced in the past allowing others to see for themselves rather than be told how an event occurred. There are two images that represent the above claim, Arnold Eagle and David Robbins’ photo of a little boy in New York City, and Dorothea Lange’s image of a migratory family from Texas; both were taken during the Great Depression.

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.