Documentary Photography and the Great Depression Every Picture Tells a Story…

photographers working for the federal government set out to create a pictorial record of the impact of the Great Depression focusing primarily on rural Americans The Images not only record the conditions of poverty, but also celebrate the persistence of the human spirit

Photographs are historical sources. Therefore they do not necessarily capture “objective reality.” They are interpretations that express the ideas and opinions. They tell stories. Photographers focus on certain information and cut out other materials. They select certain shots instead of others.

Dorthea Lange was one of the most famous of the Great Depression photographers. Her most famous piece was Migrant Mother. March 9, Nipomo, California Main subject was a 32-year old mother of seven

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Migrant Mother

Lange gave this account of the experience: I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).