The Photograph That Gave a Face to the Great Depression
“Migrant Mother”
Dorothea Lange, 1936
“As era-defining photographs go, “Migrant Mother” pretty much takes the cake. For many, Florence Owens Thompson is the face of the Great Depression, thanks to legendary shutterbug Dorothea Lange. Lange captured the image while visiting a dusty California pea-pickers’ camp in February 1936, and in doing so, captured the resilience of a proud nation facing desperate times.
Unbelievably, Thompson’s story is as compelling as her portrait. Just 32 years old when Lange approached her (”as if drawn by a magnet,” Lange said). Thompson was a mother of seven who’d lost her husband to tuberculosis. Stranded at a migratory labor farm in Nipomo, Calif. her family sustained themselves on birds killed by her kids and vegetables taken from a nearby field - as meager a living as any earned by the other 2,500 workers there. The photo’s impact was staggering. Reproduced in newspapers everywhere, Thompson’s haunted face triggered an immediate public outcry, quickly prompting politicos from the federal Resettlement Administration to send food and supplies. Sadly, however, Thompson and her family had already moved on, receiving nary a wedge of government cheese for their high-profile misery. In fact, no one knew the identity of the photographed woman until Thompson revealed herself years later in a 1976 newspaper article.”
This morning, Byron spoke on the subject of “Is This Another Great Depression?“, so I’ve been reading about what people went through during that time. The story of this woman, of course, caught my attention - and the knowledge that there were countless others like her….alone, no money, so many mouths to feed….no hope.
The current economic state has raised my own fears. I’ve had to make choices….but never like this woman. I’ve never had to watch my little ones go hungry….I’ve never really been afraid of just surviving.
I pray that I will never become so consumed with my own difficulties that I don’t see the despair and hopelessness in the eyes of those around me.
When I first saw this photograph, I only noticed two children clinging to their mother….then, as I looked closer, I saw the baby…
It also struck me that she looks so much older than 32.
I pray that I see people as they really are - that I don’t just walk on by caught up in my own struggle to deal with the challenges of life.
It’s funny how something from so long ago can prick my heart even now.
I guess some things are universal: a mother’s love for her children….fear….uncertainty….the need for hope……
We all deal with these things on some level.
I needed to be reminded of this today.
Peace.
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