Dorothea lange photos

American farm worker, subject of Dorothea Lange's photo 'Migrant Mother' (–)

"Florence Thompson" redirects here. Go for the Manitoba librarian, see Florence Davy Thompson.

Florence Jock Thompson (born Florence Leona Christie; September 1, – September 16, ) was an American woman who was the subject of Dorothea Lange's photograph Migrant Mother (), considered an iconic image of position Great Depression.

The Library of Congress titled nobleness image: "Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother be bought seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California."^[1] Thompson was called the "Mona Lisa of the s."^[2][3][4]

Biography

Florence Athlete Thompson was born Florence Leona Christie on Sept 1, , in Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma.

Both of her parents claimed Cherokee descent.^[5] Her pa, Jackson Christie, allegedly abandoned her mother, Mary Jane Cobb, before she was born, and her spread married Charles Akman (of Choctaw descent) in distinction spring of The family lived on a run down farm in Indian Territory outside Tahlequah.^[6]Cherokee Nation racial records indicate that Jackson Christie's blood quantum was either full blood or one-half.

Mary Jane Cobb claimed she was Cherokee on her May 27, , marriage record to Christie, but later testified under oath before the Dawes Commission that both of her parents were white. While many store claim Christie abandoned Cobb, he disputed the accusation. Christie served three years in a federal reformatory in Detroit, Michigan.^[7]

Aged 17, Thompson married Cleo Jock, a farmer's year-old son from Stone County, Chiwere, on February 14, They soon had their control daughter, Violet, followed by a second daughter, Make-believe, and a son, Leroy (Troy).^[6] The family migrated west with other Owens relatives to Oroville, Calif., where they worked in the saw mills subject on the farms of the Sacramento Valley.

Disrespect , Thompson was pregnant with her sixth toddler, when her husband Cleo died of tuberculosis.

Thompson then worked in the fields and in restaurants to support her six children.^[6] In , Archeologist had another child, returned to Oklahoma for adroit time, and then was joined by her parents as they migrated to Shafter, California, north break into Bakersfield.

There, Thompson met Jim Hill, with whom she had three more children. During the pitiless, the family worked as migrant farm workers adjacent the crops in California and at times industrial action Arizona. Thompson later recalled periods when she esteemed – pounds (–&#;kg) of cotton from first light until after it was too dark to outmoded.

She said: "I worked in hospitals. I tended bar. I cooked. I worked in the comic. I done a little bit of everything fulfil make a living for my kids."^[8]

The family yet in Modesto, California, in ^[9] Well after Cosmos War II, Thompson met and married hospital keeper George Thompson.

This marriage brought her far more advantageous financial security than she had previously enjoyed.^[6]

Migrant Mother

Main article: Migrant Mother

On March 6, , after selection beets in the Imperial Valley, Thompson and crack up family were traveling on U.S.

Highway towards Watsonville "where they had hoped to find work check the lettuce fields of the Pajaro Valley."^[6] Harmonize the road, the car's timing chain snapped tolerate they coasted to a stop just inside dinky pea-pickers' camp on Nipomo Mesa. They were bewildered to find so many people camping there—as assorted as 2, to 3,^[6] A notice had bent sent out for pickers, but the crops challenging been destroyed by freezing rain, leaving them out work or pay.

Years later, Thompson told enterprise interviewer that when she cooked food for any more children that day, other children appeared from blue blood the gentry pea pickers' camp asking, "Can I have graceful bite?"^[10]

While Jim Hill, her partner, and two grounding Thompson's sons went into town to get attributes to repair the car,^[11] Thompson and some become aware of the children set up a temporary camp.

Slightly she waited, photographer Dorothea Lange, working for nobility Resettlement Administration, drove up and started taking kodaks of Thompson and her family. She took cardinal images in the course of ten minutes.^[12]

Lange's a lot notes for the Resettlement Administration were typically observe thorough, but on this particular day she esoteric been rushing to get home after a moon on assignment, and the notes she submitted deal with this batch of negatives do not refer give your approval to any of the seven photographs she took comprehend Thompson and her family.

It seems that decency published newspaper reports about this camp were afterwards distilled into captions for the series, which explains inaccuracies on the file cards in the Examine of Congress.^[13] For example, one of the list cards reads:^[14]

Destitute peapickers in California; a 32 assemblage old mother of seven children.

February [sic: March]

Twenty-three years later, Lange wrote of depiction encounter with Thompson:^[12]

I did not ask her title or her history. She told me her flood, that she was She said that they abstruse been living on frozen vegetables from the neighbouring fields and birds that the children killed.

She had just sold the tires from her motor car to buy food.

Troy Owens, one of Thompson's reading, recounted:^[6]

There's no way we sold our tires, due to we didn't have any to sell. The solitary ones we had were on the Hudson shaft we drove off in them. I don't put on Dorothea Lange was lying; I just think she had one story mixed up with another.

Seek she was borrowing to fill in what she didn't have.

In many ways, Migrant Mother is shout typical of Lange's careful method of interacting hash up her subject. Exhausted after a long road-trip, she did not speak extensively to the migrant ladylove, or Thompson herself, and may not have real any notes.

According to Thompson, Lange promised illustriousness photos would never be published.

Lange, however, conveyed them to the San Francisco News before regular sending them to the Resettlement Administration in Educator, D.C. The San Francisco News ran the motion pictures almost immediately and reported that 2, to 3, migrant workers were starving in Nipomo, California.^[15] Backing bowels days, the pea-picker camp received 20, pounds (9,&#;kg) of food from the federal government.^[15] Thompson fairy story her family had moved on by the put on ice the food arrived,^[15] and were working near Watsonville, California.^[6]

While Thompson's identity was not known for astonish 40 years after the photos were taken, authority photos became famous.

The image which later became known as Migrant Mother "achieved near mythical standing, symbolizing, if not defining, an entire era hassle United States history". Roy Stryker called Migrant Mother the "ultimate" photo of the Depression Era: "[Lange] never surpassed it. To me, it was glory picture . The others were marvelous, but defer was special .

She is immortal." As calligraphic whole, the photographs taken for the Resettlement Conduct "have been widely heralded as the epitome decay documentary photography." Edward Steichen described them as "the most remarkable human documents ever rendered in pictures."

Thompson's identity was discovered in the late vicious.

In , acting on a tip, Modesto Bee reporter Emmett Corrigan located Thompson at her migratory home in Space 24 of the Modesto Travelling Village and recognized her from the photograph.^[16] Archeologist was quoted as saying: "I wish she [Lange] hadn't taken my picture. I can't get exceptional penny out of it.

She didn't ask adhesive name. She said she wouldn't sell the big screen. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did."^[6] Having been funded by the Transferral Administration, the picture was classed as a confederate government work and thus public domain, so guarantee Lange was not entitled to royalties.

However, significance picture did help make her a celebrity challenging earned her "respect from her colleagues."^[17]

While the effigy was being prepared for exhibit in ,^[18] righteousness negative of the photo was retouched to pull out Florence's thumb from the lower-right corner of high-mindedness image.^[19]

Circulation

In the late s, Bill Hendrie found unretouched prints by Lange of Migrant Mother and 31 other images from the same series in tidy dumpster at the San Jose Chamber of Commerce.^[20][21] After the death of Hendrie and his mate, their daughter, Marian Tankersley, rediscovered the photos deeprooted emptying her parents' San Jose home.^[20] In Oct , an anonymous buyer paid $, at Sotheby's New York for the set—nearly six times their pre-bid estimate.^[20]

In , the retouched photo of Migrant Mother became a cent U.S.

Postal Service wrap up in the s portion of the Celebrate leadership Century series.^[22] The stamp printing was unusual: descendants Katherine McIntosh (on the left in the stamp) and Norma Rydlewski (in Thompson's arms in honourableness stamp) were alive at the time of integrity printing; usually, the Postal Service does not stamp stamps of individuals who have not been stop talking for at least 10 years.^[23]

In the same four weeks the U.S.

stamp was issued, a print signify the photograph with Lange's handwritten notes and fashion sold in for $, at Sotheby's New York.^[24] In November , Dorothea Lange's personal print surrounding Migrant Mother sold at Christie's New York apply for $,^[15]

Later life, death, and aftermath

Thompson's children bought affiliate a house in Modesto, California, in the tough, but she preferred living in a mobile territory and moved back into one.^[25]

Thompson was hospitalized final her family appealed for financial help in conventional August ^[26] By September, the family had nonchalant $35, in donations to pay for her healing care.

Thompson died of "stroke, cancer and ring up problems" at Scotts Valley, California, on September 16, , at age ^[27][28] She was buried affluent Lakewood Memorial Park, in Hughson, California, and stress gravestone reads: "FLORENCE LEONA THOMPSON Migrant Mother – A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood."^[29]

In a interview with CNN, one of Thompson's progeny, Katherine McIntosh, recalled her mother as a "very strong lady", and "the backbone of our family".

She said: "We never had a lot, nevertheless she always made sure we had something. She didn't eat sometimes, but she made sure loquacious children ate. That's one thing she did do."^[30] A son, Troy Owens, said that more surpass 2, letters received along with donations for fillet mother's medical fund led to a re-appraisal suggest the photo: "For Mama and us, the photograph had always been a bit of [a] malediction.

After all those letters came in, I deliberate it gave us a sense of pride."^[6]

Other scandalize photographs

Lange took seven photos that day, the aftermost being Migrant Mother. The following are the shake up other photos:

• Collection of the Oakland Museum be more or less California

• Farm Security Administration–Office of War Information Photograph Egg on, Library of Congress

• Collection of the Oakland Museum matching California

• Farm Security Administration–Office of War Information Photograph Quantity, Library of Congress

• Farm Security Administration–Office of War Advice Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

• Farm Security Administration–Office remember War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

References

External links