Migrant Mother

[Warph]

You've likely seen it before...it's called Migrant Mother and it's one of the more famous American photos.

Photojournalist Dorothea Lange captured this image while visiting a California pea-pickers' camp in February, 1936.  Thompson was a mother of seven, who'd lost her husband to tuberculosis.  Her family sustained themselves on birds killed by her kids, and vegetables taken from a nearby field.  The photo became known as "Migrant Mother" and is one of the most famous photos representing the Depression Era.  After the picture and article ran in newspapers, it brought attention to the 3,000 migrant workers who were starving in Nipomo, California.  Within days, the camp received 20,000 pounds of food from the federal government.  By the time the food arrived, Thompson and her family had moved to another location.  Thompson's identity was not known until 40 years later, when she was located at her mobile home in Modesto, California, after someone recognized her from the famous photograph.  When she took the photo, Lange neglected to note the woman's name (or other details) so her identity remained anonymous while the photo went on to become a symbol of the Great Depression.  In the late 1970s, Florence Owens Thompson revealed herself to be the woman in the photo after she wrote a letter to her local paper saying that she didn't like the image.  In an AP story about the ensuing flap, Thompson stated:

"I wish she hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. [Lange] didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did."  It should be noted that Lange was funded by the federal government when she took the picture, so the image was in the public domain.  Lange never directly received any royalties, but she did make celebrity status as a photojournalist. 

In addition to not taking her subject's name, Lange got something else wrong.  Thompson and her family weren't typical Depression migrants at all; they'd been living in California for almost 10 years. L ike all photographs, Migrant Mother is neither truth nor fiction but somewhere in-between.

On September 16, 1983,Thompson died of cancer and heart problems, at the age of 80.

Interesting Fact:  During a 2008 interview, Thompson's daughter Katherine (to the left of the frame) said that the photo's fame made the family feel shame at their poverty, but also determined never to be as poor again.  Her son Troy, after receiving more than 2000 letters, along with donations for his mother's medical fund, led to his reassessment of the photo: "For Mama and us, the photo had always been a bit of curse.  After all those letters came in, I think it gave us a sense of pride."  Florence Owens Thompson's epitaph reads, "Migrant Mother–A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood."