Dorothea Lange

1895-1965

Dorothea Lange created some of the most enduring images of American hardship and resilience. Born in Hoboken in 1895, she started as a studio portrait photographer in San Francisco, initially working with painter Maynard Dixon, her first husband. In the early 1930s, as the Depression deepened, she turned to documentary photography of labor strikes and displaced workers. Her collaboration with economist Paul Taylor—who became her second husband—led to assignments photographing migrant agricultural workers for California relief agencies and then for the federal Farm Security Administration from 1935. During World War II, she documented Japanese-American internment camps. Lange's photographs combined technical mastery with profound compassion, capturing dignity in conditions of desperation. She traveled extensively with Taylor throughout Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, working also for the Office of War Information and Life magazine. A retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art came the year after her death in San Francisco in 1965.