The History of Migrant Mother, One of the Most Famous Photographs of All Time

During the 1930s, photographer Dorothea Lange helped take some iconic images that showed the struggles of the Great Depression.

One of these, entitled Migrant Mother, is a photo that is iconic, affecting, and beautiful all at once.

The Library of Congress description reads:

“Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California.”

The image itself, however, is much deeper than that, and shows a caring mother in the midst of struggle, with a worried yet determined look on her face. It’s the type of photograph you’ve probably seen dozens of times, referenced in National Geographic or other publications.

We were interested to learn the backstory behind it.

Taken in March 1936, in Nipomo, California, Dorothea Lange describes the moment she captured the image.

“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: Lange’s “The Assignment I’ll Never Forget: Migrant Mother,” Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).

MOMA has a quick visual summary of the famous photograph below.

Click on the image below to see the large, full-size version.

A colorized version of the photo breathes life further into the image from the 1930s.

Edited by Ben VanderVeen · About Moss & Fog

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