A look at the work of Dorothea Lange who captured the Great Depression through her lens and created some of the iconographic images of that era.
At a time when women had had the vote for less than twenty years, Dorothea Lange was a pioneer. A professional woman who took photographs for a living. The Great Depression of the 1930s is best remembered, photographically, by the work of the FSA, for which she worked. She travelled the USA recording the deprivations caused by the failure of the economy as well as taking many uplifting images that showed that, despite the hard times, life and love went on.
It is probably best to start with an image of the photographer herself. Unlike some, Lange did not interpolate herself actively in her photographs – those that we have of her show her usually on her own in very much a framed composition. This shot from 1937 shows her in the field with one of her cameras, rather coquettishly positioned atop of her car. Short dark hair and a feminine yet somehow boyish dress sense, the beauty of this shot lies in the baseball boots she is wearing. Her job was not, after all, one that required heels on any sort so why bow to the fashion dictates of the time?
