1929 –1941Global economic crisis
Numerous bank failures and factory closures sparked by the 1929 NY Stock Market crash1 out of 4 workers unemployed at a time when most families survived on one incomeDramatic drop in industrial production1931 drought, wind storms and over farming turned the Great Plains into the Dust Bowl
The New Deal
1933 – 1937Direct relief, economic recovery and financial reform
New Deal programs oversaw loans, flood control, migrant camps, agricultural education, work relief and the creation of the social security system
Dorothea Lange
1895 -1965
http://www.dorothealangephotos.com/images/070316201143_dorothea_lange_on_top_of_a_car_LG.jpg
20th Century Photography Museum Ludwig Cologne. Taschen, Koln, 2005.
http://www.dorothealangephotos.com/
http://www.dorothealangephotos.com/
November 1936. “Drought refugee from Polk, Missouri. Awaiting the opening of orange picking season at Porterville, California.”
October 1939. “Mrs. Sam Cates, wife of Cow Hollow farmer. Malheur County, Oregon.”
February 1939. Calipatria, Imperial Valley. Car on siding across tracks from pea packing plant. Twenty-five year old itinerant, originally from Oregon. “On the road eight years, all over the country, every state in the union, back and forth, pick up a job here and there, traveling all the time.”
June 1938. Outskirts of El Paso, Texas. “Young Negro wife cooking breakfast. ‘Do you suppose I’d be out on the highway cooking my steak if I had it good at home?’ Occupations: hotel maid, cook, laundress.”
October 1939. “Tavern on main street of potato town during harvest season. Merrill, Oregon.”
Fourth of July 1939 near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Rural filling stations become community centers and general loafing grounds. Cedargrove Team members about to play in a baseball game.
November 1938. “Farm woman beside her barn door. Tulare County, California. No more horseshoes!”
July 1939. Gordonton, N.C. “Country store on dirt road. Sunday afternoon. Note kerosene pump on the right and the gasoline pump on the left. Rough, unfinished timber posts have been used as supports for porch roof. Negro men sitting on the porch. Brother of store owner stands in doorway.”
November 1936. “Daughter of migrant Tennessee coal miner. Living in American River camp near Sacramento, California.”
July 1937. “Man who worked in Fullerton, Louisiana, lumber mill for 15 years. He is now left stranded in the cut-over area.”
August 1936. Drought refugees from Abilene, Texas, following the crops of California as migratory workers. Said the father: “The finest people in this world live in Texas but I just can’t seem to accomplish nothin’ there. Two year drought, then a crop, then two years drought and so on. I got two brothers still trying to make it back there.”
May 1939. “Between Tulare and Fresno on U.S. 99. Farmer from Independence, Kansas, on the road at cotton chopping time. He and his family have been in California for six months.”
Eloy District, Pinal County, Arizona. Mexican irrigator on duty preparing field for flax cultivation.
Midweed Pictorial spread using Migrant Mother image. October 17, 1936.
http://www.dorothealangephotos.com/
More Dorothea Lange
http://www.theslideprojector.com/photo1/photo1lecturepresentations/photo1lecture18.html
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/lange/index.html