Dorothea Lange Research Paper

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Dorothea Lange was born on May 26, 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey to second-generation German immigrants. Her passion for photography began when she attended Columbia University in New York City, and eventually her talent landed her several prestigious apprenticeships in New York photography studios. After graduation Lange moved to San Francisco and opened her own successful portrait studio in 1919. Lange’s work was primarily portrait photography for upper-class families in San Francisco, however her work drastically changed with the onset of a massive economic recession. On October 29, 1929, now known as Black Tuesday, the United States stock market crashed sending a wave of worldwide economic depression that would be felt for years. Referred to as The Great …show more content…

Unfortunately the law backfired and other nations increased tariffs on American-made goods, therefore international trade reduced and worsened the depression. By 1933 a quarter of the workforce was unemployed, nearly 15 million Americans. The homeless and unemployed were hit the worst by the depression, however all families were affected by the struggling economy. At the time of the depression Dorothea Lange already had two sons with her first husband Maynard Dixon, a well-known painter. Lange and her family were not considered wealthy, but they always had food on their table and a roof over their heads, unlike thousands of unemployed and homeless in the San Francisco area. Lange turned her camera from the studio to the streets to document the lives of homeless and unemployed in San Francisco. She took famous photos of unemployed citizens lined up at a local soup kitchen called the White Angel Jungle. Her work was noticed by local photographers and in 1935 the Federal Resettlement Administration; later renamed the Farm Security Administration (FSA) hired Lange as a staff photographer. Lange’s new position allowed her to travel the California coast, documenting the effects of the recession

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