Discussion #6- Documenting the Great Depression

"Migrant Mother"



We often say that pictures speak thousand words. The impact the photographs of the Great Depression had on the society was a permanent one. It touched so many lives and placed photography into the center of attention for the rest of the eternity. It opened up the eyes of the ones who don’t know how it is to be hungry and gave hope to the hungry ones that they will not be forgotten. Working for the Farm Security Administration, Dorothea Lange made series of photos of a woman with a child which later became a famous and was called "Migrant Mother".                                                

 

"Great Depression Family"

This was a story about a woman who was barely surviving in the fields of the frozen vegetables eating birds killed by her children. She was very calm and did not mind the photographer taking photos from different angles. The woman was 32 years old and she just wanted her children to survive. “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.”(The Library of Congress - Researchers) Dorothea said about meeting the “Migrant Mother". It seems as if the mother knew her story will be told and she was ready for anything. The impact these photos have today is as strong as the one fifty years ago. We can see sadness and struggle in her eyes, but willingness to make it is keeping her alive. It helps us understand what people in those days went through and how it all looked from the inside as well as from the outside.

"Migrant Mother" #2

 Works Cited
The Library of Congress -Researchers. Prints and Photographs Reading Room. 22 10 2010. 14 02 2011 <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html>.

Photos:

Photo #1: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html

Photo #2: http://www.infiniteunknown.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/depression.jpg

Photo #3: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html