Migrant Mother The United States experienced both the Great Depression and harsh weather conditions during the 1930’s causing Americans to suffer through extreme hardship and poverty. Many of the migrant farmers were bankrupt and poverty- stricken, so they were struggling to survive. Photographer and photojournalist, Dorothea Lange, captured the dangerous conditions migrant workers and their families endured through her photograph, Migrant Mother. The photograph shows a woman and children suffering, but it also shows the determination and willpower the woman had to provide for her family. When initially looking at the iconic black and white photo, I saw a woman and two children. After closely examining the image, I was then able to see the …show more content…
The image of the Migrant Mother is both a news photo and a documentary photo. Using the genre, news photography, allowed the photo to be seen throughout the country by politicians, and everyday people alike. It could also be classified as a documentary photo because the image has the ability to capture a significant event almost a century later. The memories that this photograph produces, allows us to sum up in a single image of the entire history of 1936. The photographer who took this iconic image was Dorothea Lange. In _____ Dorothea Lange had recently taken a position at the Resettlement Administration and began taking photos of migrant farm workers. The photographer never stated why she chose to take a photo of the woman and children, but one can infer that the photographer wanted to spread awareness of the condition people in America were living in. To find out about Dorothea Lange and her career one can simply google her name and read the various biographies about her life or go to the local …show more content…
Roosevelt, and other people with high power. Lange’s ultimate goal was to inform the public and start an internal debate that would eventually lead to success in America. Lange was aware of how deeply this image will speak to the American people. The internal fire that was sparked in certain people helped America grow as a country and lead to a recession. Lange wanted everyone to know what was happening behind the scenes and for nothing to go
These photographers were intended to help a struggling people by documenting their plight and introducing it to the public. Their work and the photographs they produced romanticized the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl and garnered public support for New Deal programs. Like my photograph of my family, the FSA photographs may not depict to exactness the events of the period, but they helped to form the mood of a nation.
EVENT: What happened before this picture was taken? What were the events leading up to this Photograph? What event was occurring when this picture was
Jones, Dorothy. "Sharing Memories: 1930's Life on the Farm During the Great Depression." MrDonn.Org. 28 Oct. 2007. 13 Mar. 2008 .
Depression Era: 1930s: Repatriation for Mexican & Filipino Farm Workers. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. .
Photographers had begum to document and publicize the issues of the race problem and the struggle for equal rights in the United States in the early 1900s. Early photographs documented protests against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and captured protest...
On the prairies, Canadian farm women faced very specific challenges. In the article ““I like to Hoe My Own Row”: A Saskatchewan Farm Woman’s Notions about Work and Womanhood during the Great Depression,” Author Cristine Georgina Bye’s great-grandmother, Kate Graves’ specific challenges mainly consisted of keeping her family afloat despite her growing age while also balancing traditional feminine roles with the hard labour of farm work. Kate Graves’ “spent seventeen-hour days churning butter, raising chickens, tending children, cooking, cleaning, canning, sewing, and gardening” during a time when farming was nearly impossible due to droughts and the harsh economic conditions of the Depression. Graves’ family, like other’s in rural Saskatchewan, suffered losses during the thirties, as many families would put off medical procedures because of lack of funds. Graves’ lost her daughter to tuberculosis in 1933 and in total her region lost “22 percent of its farm population.” There is very little written about Canadian farm women during the Great Depression, but what there is written about these women showcases a particular strength and determination that can only be found in the rural lands of the
First, the scene in the image was manipulated through stage-managing, a common practice in photojournalism. While the image of the migrant mother, Florence Thompson, appears to the viewer to be a genuine and unprompted look at the hardship and deprivation of a dejected migrant woman. This, of course, was the reality of Ms. Thompson’s personal situation at the time. But the scene itself was micromanaged to appear in a lucid and vivid form in the image, including editing Ms. Thompson’s older children from the image to create the more poignant scene of a mother holding a small child and using a pose in which the woman is looking out into the distance, with the two children told to lo...
Family dynamics present interesting revelations, especially regarding the relationship between parents and children. While most families undoubtedly encounter dysfunction at some point throughout life, immigrant families seemingly experience such stress continually. A handful of short stories, including “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, “Who’s irish” by Gish Jen, and “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” by Yiyun Li, demonstrate how strained relations erupt in immigrant families. Familial tension noticeably arises because of the immigrant parents’ inability to fully adjust to the American way of life. Further, immigrant parents adhere to strict expectations in an attempt to uphold the family’s conservative heritage. Finally, immigrant parents typically
Change is depicted an as aspect of life which can propel us down unexpected paths, this can either be resisted or embraced by individuals. Peter Skrzynecki portrays these notions throughout his poems ‘Kornelia’ and ‘Migrant hostel’. The poems are supported by the stylistic devices used throughout his poems to further emphasise the meaning behind, often used are personification, symbolism and similes. The two texts chosen Joni Mitchell ‘Big yellow taxi’ Martin Luther king ‘I have a dream’ further contrast the notions of change that Peter speaks of in his poems, proclaiming change will modify the permanency in one’s livelihood, Change Is often unwanted but is necessary and to fully comprehend change one has to embrace it. These composers have
The saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” cannot be demonstrated more thoroughly than during The Great Depression, a time when there were not a lot of words to be said. The photograph of the “Migrant Mother,” taken in this time period, The Great Depression, has inspired me want to dig deeper into Dorothea Lange’s experience during that time period. When I first saw the photograph of the “Migrant Mother,” I could not get the image out of my head because it tugged at my heart and it is something I have wanted to learn more about since we discussed Dorothea Lange in class.
The photographers of the Farming Security Administration contributed to modern times both educationally and visually. Photographers like Russell Lee took photographs that not only captured the lives of those who suffered greatly with the Great Depression hovering over them, but also the emotions that these people felt. Russell Lee, like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans found his opportunity to prosper during the Great Depression with his photographs that would document the average American life suffering the wrath of the Depression from either unemployment or lack of home or even both. ...
The American Dream, is what every immigrant looks for when coming to the United States. But it's not all it seems to be. There are consequences, stereotypes and pressure put on the children of these immigrants. 40% of children in immigrant families have at least one parent who is mexican born. As stated by Childtrends.org. This means 40 out of 100 children have pressure on them whether it's by their parents (because they are immigrants) or by society by placing stereotypes.
We don’t realize how hard it is for immigrant parents to get their children education, and we judge and hate on something we have never been through. I guess it’s true you never know someone’s pain unless you go through it. Not everyone has the same privileges as others, some have to work twice as hard to try to give their children an opportunity towards an education on the contrary some American families have it simpler. I not blaming people who have families who were born here or say it’s wrong, but many people tend to affront children of immigrant parents and feel like they have the equitableness to say they aren’t suitable to receive public education.
Alison Bechdel isn’t a normal author. She uses graphics, and wordplay to tell a very engaging, and interesting story. One of these stories titled “The Ordinary Devoted Mother”, Bechdel tells the story of her trying to write a memoir about her mom. One of the major themes in this story is reading, and writing. Bechdel explores what writing is, how it is important, and how she perceives writing herself.
Photojournalism plays a critical role in the way we capture and understand the reality of a particular moment in time. As a way of documenting history, the ability to create meaning through images contributes to a transparent media through exacting the truth of a moment. By capturing the surreal world and presenting it in a narrative that is relatable to its audience, allows the image to create a fair and accurate representation of reality.