Ji, Mary

8East, Humanities

February 23, 2003

Winter Break Challenge: Dorothea Lange and Dust Bowl Photography

Without a doubt, Dorothea Lange's documentary photography helped the Okies obtain government relief during the Dust Bowl. Dorothea Lange's successes in making the government realize the plight of the migrants from the Dust Bowl region helped change forever the ways of how the Okies lived and acted. She was very much important to the migration of the Okies to California than the Okies itself because it made people realize what life as an Okie was like, painful and dangerous, but at the same time, rewarding because they were taught with the skill to survive than most of the other people around. Her photos can teach students the Dust Bowl in US history by showing how the Okies where portrayed as and the harsh times they had to live and go through. Students studying the Dust Bowl in US history can learn many things from viewing her photos as texts. Each photo show different participants, processes and circumstances. The way the photos are laid out show the production of the images. Today, documentary photography can help solve some of today's problems, such as race and ethnicity. Many problems occur right here on the streets with normal average everyday people. There have been many problems relating to how different people and racial ethnicity are portrayed.

Dorothea Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1895 and studied photography. When she moved to San Francisco in 1919, she earned her living as a portrait photographer. Dorothea Lange's interest during the depression years were in social issues. She then began to photograph the city's deprive. In February 1935, Dorothea and Paul Taylor together documented migrant farm workers in Nipomo and the Imperial Valley for the California State Emergency Relief Administration. Dorothea Lange is famous because she showed what life was like as an Okie who was always traveling. She showed how they lived and that they where very humble. She showed it through her photos, using high angle to show how things were like back then such as machinery. She used low angle to show how things look such as Okies poor homes in Oklahoma. Photos that is lighter than most have faces expressions from the poor Okie men and women. Darker photos show what they did and many Okies had to wait in order for them to be allowed to pass by a town or country. Lange's famous because her photos of the migrants showed something that other photographers didn't show, she showed their actual life. It shows their expressions and how they lived by selling anything valuable just to survive.

Dorothea Lange is important to the migration of the Okies to California because she changed how people acted towards the Okies. She made the government realize the migrants from the Dust Bowl region which made them build weed patch camps for the Okies to live in. Her photos had a powerful impact on the ways the Okies where living which caught the attention of the government so that persuaded them to give the Okies a chance so they build camps for them to stay in and gave out work. Dorothea Lange is important to the migration of the Okies to California because she took devastating photos of the Okies strive to move to California on account of what they heard. Her photos changed the government and

when the California people didn't want the Okies to move to their land, the government came in and changed them from being squatters, they build weed patch camps for them to live in. Her photos were taken to tell a sad story on the life on Okies. Garbage where closer up than people because there were only garbage. The Dust Bowl in Oklahoma left many Okies wandering and searching for a place to call their home. Okies had to leave most of their belongings covered in dust and take the most important thinsg that they don't strive on.

Students studying the Dust Bowl in US history learn many struggles and difficulties the Okies faced when traveling to California on old jalopies from viewing her photos as texts. The different vectors show something that is far and very hard to reach and accomplish. Many Okies at the Dust Bowl age had to run from the dust storms, but in California, instead of dust storms, there is work. Work that doesn't pay well, but they still do it because they needed the money to feed their families. Farmers had

to work long hard hours each day and every night. High angle views such as the picture on the left shows you that the farmers had to work through long hours on a farm that has sun shining on it from morning to night. This picture intentionally wants to show you that the farmers where considered as small because they would give themselves in, working all day for not more than a dollar. The people aren't looking straight at the camera so this photo is just taken to show the stress and what Okies had to do everyday, while others just watch. The people in this photo all look skinny which shows you that, that's probably because they don't have enough to eat and live on so they don't grow much. The farmers are all working lifting heavy crates. You can tell that the crates are heavy because some of the farmers seem to have trouble lifting it. The production of the images show you that life became tougher because they had to work long hours and when the pay is bad they don't complain because they are afraid of losing their jobs.

Throughout the time of the Dust Bowl, many people depended on each other and their belongs or at least what they have left of their things. Many people such as this man had to face consequences if they did anything that's wrong and that offended people. This man is posing at the camera showing the life of an Okie man. Showing how lonely and sad their life is because as you can see, the things beside him aren't nice and wealthy things, it old broken things. He's trying to say that life isn't just bad but it gets even worse. The colors around the Okie man are dark and seem to show how life was like for the Okies. This photo seems to showing that not all Okies are white men; women and children, there are other Okies of other ethnicity such as African Americans. Whites and African Americans suffered through the same things and none of them had anything better to offer. This lighting that Dorothea Lange used shows how men of all color face and acts. They are quiet and alert because they are going thousands of miles with no one they know of. They can be nice to anyone because they aren't sure if they are friends or foes.

When students study the Dust Bowl in US history, photos of the Dust Bowl age won't seem much to them because its just photos right? Wrong! When students look at photos the text tells all. This photo shows a low angel view of the man with grapes. He's probably showing the grapes because since he got to California, everything was right and that they are growing food such as grapes to live on. He's holding the grapes in mid air showing how much he has and smiling. Although the batch of grapes are covering his face, you can tell that the look on his face is a smiling because who wouldn't be happy if they have grapes? No one I guess. This farmer is however posing even though he isn't looking directly at the camera. The way he is positioned in the photo show you that many farmers aren't

like him, they don't have great crops such as him. The background of the man is very light showing that when the photo was taken it was in the morning.

Photos tell stories such as the life and how people feel, the expressions and the emotions. This photo is so light that it's saying that the photo scene takes place early in the morning. It shows that it is where people that work live in because of the house and the wood. The wood could be used for fires at night, and in the photo it shows water, so that could be where the people got their drinking water from. The posed image of the photo show you that life are very dirty and very sandy. Many people had to work late at night just to be able to pay for rent and if they couldn't pay, tractors would be sent in by the bank to tear the house down so they would have more land to plant crops and get more profit. This photo is telling a story about how Mexican field workers live. They live in dirty, filthy places where no one would dare to live in. This

photo shows a place where they would live, cook and clean in. Since people don't get paid well, they had to be able to still make money no matter what happens, so many farmers and children had to work from morning to late at night, sometimes without break and lunch. This story is very emotional because not a lot of the Okies get to live; many Okies instead die on their way to the place they call California.

Okies migrating to California, not only have to cross towns and countries; they had to wait in line so that they could pass which takes up too much time. This photo shows boys waiting for relief to check into calipatria. The dark highlights of the boys hide things like them smoking. They all have cigarettes coming out of their mouths and since highlight is dark, it would be hard to see it. The way the boys are positioned doesn't seem like they are posed because they aren't looking, they are making eye contact with each other and obviously is talking to one another. The low angle position Lange put the boys in show that they are bigger. Since there is a darker highlight than other photos, it must be meant to hide the faces of the boys because the shadow is blocking it. The participates are

three boys who are on their way to California but first, they must pass by countries and towns. The vectors in this photo show the shadow of the jalopy and the sky. With much thought, this photo seems to be aiming at a high point and that is to show that kids during the Dust Bowl days do smoke and they do have to wait a long time before they could pass.

The present is much different from the Dust Bowl days because back then, they have to wait in order to pass and get checked off but today people could freely pass from one state to another without having to wait. Life today is different from the Dust Bowl days because many things are more modern than before and you could get things easier than before. Documentary photos can help solve some of the present problems such as race and ethnicity because photos can show a group of people of different race and ethnicity getting along, laughing and smiling at each other. Watching a group of people laughing and smiling will be easily forgotten because you just see it once but having a photo you can keep the memories. Photos can solve the social problems of race and ethnicity because it could show people getting along instead of people hating and killing each other.

Obviously Dorothea Lange is famous because she changed the minds of the government in which they actually build homes for the Okies to live in. She made a great impact on how photos could be used to help argue a main point. Her main point for taking photos of the Okies and how they were living were to show the government how the Okies where treated and how they lived, this then changed the way the government see the Okies as. You should think about why artists decided to use cameras to document an important event, is it to just save the experience or is it something more, to change how people see things as, always having the thing to remind people how different people reacted to a certain situation.

Bibliography:

"Photographer: Dorothea Lange." ND. Last retrieved February 21, 2003. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fachap03.html

Library of Congress. "Dorothea Lange." April 19, 2002. Last retrieved Feb 21, 03. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0013.html

Fowler, Dave. "Dorothea Lange and the Relocation of the Japanese." May 10, 1998. Last retrieved Feb 21, 03. http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist/lange.html

Clarke, Ben. "Farm Security Administration Photographs." ND. Last retrieved Feb 21, 03. http://www.freedomvoices.org/pholist.htm

Oakland Museum of California. "Dorothea Lange." 2001. Last retrieved Feb 21, 2003. http://www.museumca.org/global/art/collections_dorothea_lange.html

Picture Credits:

http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/fsa/8b31000/8b31700/8b31747r.jpg

http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/fsa/8b31000/8b31700/8b31719r.jpg

http://www.freedomvoices.org/lang8062.htm

http://www.freedomvoices.org/lang9926.htm

http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/fsa/8b31000/8b31700/8b31778r.jpg

http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/fsa/8b31000/8b31800/8b31807r.jpg

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