Explore Human Erosion in California (Migrant Mother)

Read About This Photograph by Dorothea Lange

This photograph was taken in 1936 at a camp for farm workers in Nipomo, California. The tired mother in the picture was named Florence Owens. She was raising eight children by herself after her husband died in 1931. She and her older children worked on farms throughout central California, picking crops like lettuce, peas, and beets so they could earn money and buy food. They traveled by car from farm to farm to find work.

This picture was taken during the Great Depression, a very hard time when many people did not have jobs or enough money for food or homes. When the photo was printed in a newspaper in San Francisco, California in 1936, it shocked many Americans because it showed how difficult life was for struggling families. After people saw the picture, the government immediately sent 20,000 pounds of food to help the hungry workers. The photograph became a famous symbol of the difficult times many people faced during the Great Depression.

Florence Owens and her family kept traveling around California, following crops to find farm work. In 1952, she married George Thompson and settled into a steadier life in Modesto, California. She died in 1983 when she was 80 years old. Her gravestone reads, “Migrant Mother—A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood.”

Questions

Write or discuss your responses.

• Why was Florence Owens’s life so hard when this picture was taken?
• Why do you think one photo made so many people want to help Owens, her family, and people like her?
• Have you ever seen a picture that made you want to help someone? What made you feel that way?
• What do you think was the hardest part about Owens’s life on the road?