Migrant Mother

About the Image

in 1936, Dorothea Lange was working for the US government’s Resettlement Administration, which later became the Farm Security Administration (FSA). The intention was to document the hardships suffered by ordinary Americans in the aftermath of the Great Depression.

Problems were made worse by the fact the Great Plains region of the southern USA had almost a decade of drought, starting in 1930. This, coupled with the influx of largely inexperienced farmers in the preceeding decades, brought about an environmental and humanitarian disaster. Lange, and other FSA photographers, took more than 80,000 photographs between 1935 and 1944. None, though, hit quite as hard as Lange’s image of Florence Owens Thompson and 3 of her 6 children.

Despite outward appearances, the image is not a chance occurrence. The final, edited, image is one of a series taken after Lange was driving through California and stumbled across the pea-pickers farm outside Nipomo, in which Thompson and her family were living. Both Thompson and her daughters were posed by Lange for maximum impact.

Thompson later disputed some of the details in the story that accompanied the photo in a San Francisco newspaper in March 1936. The story indicated that Thompson had sold the tyres of her sons’ car to buy food, but Thompson flatly denies this, saying Lange added to the story for effect. Thompson’s sons were in the nearby town buying two tyres when Lange arrived, which seems to bear out Thompson’s claims.

Originally called “Ragged Mother with Three Children”, the image became “Migrant Mother” only after publication, and it’s entry into the consciousness of a public often protected from the worst of the effects of the depression. Since then, it has become the defining symbol of a generation, and one of history’s most iconic photographs.

Since the very beginning, because Lange was working for a government agency, the image has been in the public domain. This has helped its impact to spread, due to there being no limits on its use or replication.

Florence Owens Thompson was just 32 years old when the picture was taken, but looks at least 10 years older. She died in September 1983, after a battle against cancer. The family had no money for treatment, so one of her sons asked for donations. Such was the impact of Migranty Mother that money flooded in. In total, over $35,000 was raised.

Florence Owens Thompson was 80 years old when she died, and yet will forever remain 32 years old to anybody who has heard her name.

Dorothea Lange died in 1965, also from cancer.