DOROTHEA LANGE: "PORTRAITS" (1935 - 1939) - Since 2008, AMERICAN SUBURB X | Art, Photography and Culture that matters.

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On U.S. 99. Near Brawley, Imperial County. Homeless mother and youngest child of seven walking the highway from Phoenix, Arizona where they picked cotton. Bound for San Diego, where the father hopes to get on relief "because he once lived there.". 1939

Mr. Wardlow, drought area farmer, adjusting to a Western farm. Dead Ox Flat, Malheur County, Oregon. October, 1939.

In a carrot pickers' camp, Imperial Valley, California. Woman from Broken Bow, Oklahoma. "Are you going to take my picture, wait till I get my hair combed". February, 1939.

Tenant farmer. Chatham County, North Carolina. August, 1939.

Tulelake, Siskiyou County, California. September, 1939.

Negro in Greenville, Mississippi. 1936.

Migratory boy, aged eleven, and his grandmother work side by side picking hops. Started work at five a.m. Photograph made at noon. Temperature 105 degrees. Oregon, Polk County, near Independence. 1939

Washington, Yakima Valley, near Wapato. One of Chris Adolph's younger children. Farm Security Administration Rehabilitation clients. August, 1939.

Migrant child in Shafter camp, Farm Security Administration. California. 1938

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Washington, Yakima Valley, near Wapato. Rural rehabilitation client (Farm Security Administration). Portrait of Chris Adolf. "My father made me work. That was his mistake, he made me work too hard. I learned about farming but nothing out of the books." August, 1939.

Mrs. Hull, in one room basement dugout home, late afternoon. Dead Ox Flat, Malheur County, Oregon. October, 1939.

Migratory boy in squatter camp. Has come to Yakima Valley for the third year to pick hops. Mother: "You'd be surprised what that boy can pick." Washington, Yakima Valley. August, 1939.

Mississippi Delta Negro children. 1936

Member of the congregation of Wheeley's church who is called "Queen." She is wearing the old fashioned type of sunbonnet. Her dress and apron were made at home. Near Gordonton, North Carolina. July, 1939.

Cotton picking in south Texas. 1936

A grandmother from Oklahoma. She works in the California pea fields. Calipatria, California. 1939

Young migrant mother has just finished washing. Merrill FSA (Farm Security Administration) camp, Klamath County, Oregon. October, 1939.

Bob Lemmons, Carrizo Springs, Texas. Born a slave about 1850, south of San Antonio. Came to Carrizo Springs during the Civil War with white cattlemen seeking new range. In 1865, with his master was one of the first settlers. Knew Billy the Kid, King Fisher, and other noted bad men of the border. August, 1936.

Zollie Lyon, Negro sharecropper, home from the field for dinner at noontime, with his wife and part of his family. Wake County, North Carolina. July, 1939.

Child living in Oklahoma City shacktown. August, 1936.

A mother in California who with her husband and her two children will be returned to Oklahoma by the Relief Administration. This family had lost a two-year-old baby during the winter as a result of exposure. March, 1937.

Migrant woman from Arkansas living in contractor's camp near Westley, California. She would prefer to live in a government camp, but the contractor system prevents, because of control over allocations of work. 1939

Young mother, twenty five, says "Next year we'll be painted and have a lawn and flowers." Rural shacktown, near Klamath Falls, Oregon. October, 1939.

The riding boss. Aldridge Plantation, Mississippi. June, 1937.

Soper grandmother, who lives with family. FSA borrower. Willow Creek area. Malheur County, Oregon. October, 1939.

Grandson of Negro tenant whose father is in the penitentiary. Granville County, North Carolina. July, 1939.

Mexican field worker, father of six. Imperial Valley, Riverside County, California. March, 1935.

Texas woman in carrot pullers' camp. Imperial Valley, California. This sunbonnet is typical of women who came from Texas. 1939

Old Negro. He hoes, picks cotton and is full of good humor. Aldridge Plantation, Mississippi. 1937

Drought refguees from Oklahoma camping by the roadside. They hope to work in the cotton fields. The official at the border (California-Arizona) inspection service said that on this day, August 17, 1936, twenty-three car loads and truck loads of migrant families out of the drought counties of Oklahoma and Arkansas had passed throught that station entering California up to 3 o'clock in the afternoon. August, 1936.

Calipatria, Imperial Valley, In Farm Security Administration (FSA) emergency migratory labor camp. February, 1939.

ASX CHANNEL: DOROTHEA LANGE

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