What does the Migrant Mother photo represent?
From the moment it first appeared in the pages of a San Francisco newspaper in March 1936, the image known as “Migrant Mother” came to symbolize the hunger, poverty and hopelessness endured by so many Americans during the Great Depression.
What is the big idea expressed in Lange’s images of the Migrant Mother?
It is an explicit representation of poverty that brings you uncomfortably close to a mother’s hardship and the will to survive during one of the most dire economic eras of American history.
What made the photo of the Migrant Mother so powerful?
The image of a worried but resilient mother was so powerful that it prompted the government to send 20,000 pounds of food to relieve starvation in a migrant worker camp. It may have also helped inspire John Steinbeck’s literary classic The Grapes of Wrath.
What is Migrant Mother worth?
In November 2002, Dorothea Lange’s personal print of Migrant Mother sold at Christie’s New York for $141,500.
What is the subject matter of Migrant Mother?
Subject Matter Migrant Mother depicts the female farm worker with 2 young children at her side and a sleeping baby on her lap. As she sits with her children, she stares into the distance and gently holds her hand to her face, suggesting that she is deep in thought.
What camera did Dorothea Lange Migrant Mother use?
Graflex 5
Photographer Dorothea Lange on top of a car in California holding a Graflex 5×7 Series D camera. And on a drive home with completed work ready to be developed, Lange passed a camp of destitute pea pickers in California. It was during 10 short minutes spent at the camp that the now-famous portrait would be made.
When did Dorothea Lange take the Migrant Mother photo?
1936
Dorothea Lange took this photograph in 1936, while employed by the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) program, formed during the Great Depression to raise awareness of and provide aid to impoverished farmers.
