Picture Timeline: Dorothea Lange

Read About the Photographer Dorothea Lange

Lange’s Childhood

Dorothea Lange was born in 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey. When she was seven, she became very sick with a disease called polio. The illness injured her right leg, and she walked with a limp for the rest of her life.

When she was 12, her father left the family. Her mother found a job at the New York Public Library in New York City, and Lange began to explore the city on her own. She walked through neighborhoods, visited parks, and went to museums.

As she explored, Lange learned to move quietly and blend in so people hardly noticed her. This skill later helped her as a photographer because she could capture real, natural moments without distracting the people she photographed.

Becoming a Photographer

After high school, Lange decided she wanted to be a photographer. She got a job helping a photographer and learned by watching him work.

In 1918, when Lange was 22 years old, she and a friend left New York to travel and see the world. While they were in San Francisco, California, someone robbed them, and she lost all her money. Since she could not continue traveling, she decided to stay in San Francisco. Within a year, she opened her own photography studio.

Finding Her True Purpose

Lange took portraits of wealthy families and became very successful. But she felt that something was missing from her work. She wanted her photos to have a deeper meaning.

Then, in 1929, the Great Depression began. Many people lost their jobs and did not have enough money for food or housing. Looking out the window of her studio, Lange saw unemployed people standing on the streets. She picked up her camera and went outside to photograph people waiting in line for free food.

When some of her portrait customers saw these photographs, they asked her what she planned to do with them. She replied that she did not know, but she knew the pictures were important and worth taking.

Important Work During Hard Times

From 1935 to 1939, Lange worked for a government program that wanted to document how difficult life was for poor farmers during the Great Depression. She traveled across the country photographing farm workers and struggling families. Her pictures showed that even during very hard times, people still had strength, courage, and dignity.

During World War II, the US government forced about 120,000 Japanese Americans to leave their homes and live in prison camps. Many photographers made the camps seem pleasant, but Lange wanted to show the truth. She photographed families being taken from their homes and included the barbed wire fences and guard towers in her pictures. She believed the government was treating these families unfairly.

Later Life and Health Problems

Lange traveled to Asia, the Middle East, and South America with her husband, taking photographs and writing in journals. She always thought carefully about her work and tried to make it better.

One of her final projects was collecting phtographs she had taken of rural American women over 25 years. She admired their strength and said: “They are not the well-dressed women you see in advertisements. They live with courage and purpose.”

Lange died from cancer in 1965 at the age of 70. Soon after her death, a major exhibition of her work opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Make a Timeline Showing Lange’s “Life in Pictures”

Create a timeline showing three different stages in Dorothea Lange’s life: as a child, in middle age, and as an older person.

• Choose three significant events, achievements, or experiences—one from each stage of her life.
• Draw one picture for each of those three moments in her life.
• On a separate, large sheet of paper or poster board, draw a horizontal timeline and mark three points along it, one for each of the three moments.
• Place your drawing above or below its location on the timeline.
• Add the approximate year for each of the three points on the timeline.
• Above or below each drawing, write 2–3 sentences explaining what was happening in Dorothea Lange’s life at that time.

Artworks showing what a specific person looks like. A portrait may look a lot like a person or show idealized characteristics.