Dorothea Lange

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the career of the photojournalist Dorothea Lange when it was a newly-forming profession and a field that was dominated by men. It analyzes how she did not start out to become a powerful force for social justice, but her compassion led her in that direction and away from the commercial photography that she began with. It looks at her considerable success in government, with her work for the Farm Security Administration and then with Life magazine in the 1940s, documenting people in their environments, including people in other countries. It evaluates how her accomplishments paved the way for other women journalists and photographers.

From the Paper:

"The obstacles placed in Lange's way were primarily created by those who did not want her to create her images and did not want other people to see them. This included the very government that had initially hired her. She was hired by the California and Federal Resettlement Administration initially, which did support her farm and migrant labor photo series. However, her efforts during World War II were not as appreciated. During this time, she focused on the forced relocation to internment camps and recorded the work of women and minority workers in wartime industries in California. This is the work that was suppressed in some instances, because the government did not want the images to appear and affect people (Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother", 1999)."

More papers on Dorothea Lange:

• Analytical Essay # 148771 : "Dorothea Lange's Photographic Theory and Style: Apparent in Migrant Mother and the Rest"
• Cause and Effect Essay # 4208 : "The Propaganda Behind Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" Photograph"
• Descriptive Essay # 113749 : "Dorothea Lange: Documenting Human Erosion"
• Term Paper # 124971 : "Dorothea Lange's Photography"

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