The Great Depression

Image 1

Photographer Dorothea Lange captured many photographs of migrant families during the Great Depression. The woman in this photograph, Florence Thompson, revealed to Lange that the family was living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds hunted by her children. She had recently sold the tires of their car to buy more food.

Image 2

This photograph of Florence Thompson and her family in their tent is from the same series as the first photograph.

Image 3

Also taken by Dorothea Lange, this photograph shows a migrant family that was transplanted from Oklahoma to California. Lange recorded this quote from the mother: "Anybody as wants to work can get by. But if a person loses their faith in the soil like so many of them back there in Oklahoma, then there ain't no hope for them. We're making it all right here, all but for the schooling, 'cause that boy of mine, he wants to go to the University."

Images 1, 2, and 3

Lange, Dorothea. Depression refugee family from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Arrived in California June 1936.

Mother and three half-grown children; no father. 1936. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

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