DOROTHEA LANGE, DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY, AND TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA
Dorothea Lange, Documentary Photography, and Twentieth-Century America charts the life of Dorothea Lange (18951965), whose life was radically altered by the Depression, and whose photography helped transform the nation. The book begins with her childhood in immigrant, metropolitan New York, shifting to her young adulthood as a New Woman who apprenticed herself to Manhattans top photographers, then established a career as portraitist to San Franciscos elite. When the Great Depression shook Americas economy, Lange was profoundly affected. Leaving her studio, Lange confronted citizens anguish with her camera, documenting their economic and social plight. This move propelled her to international renown.
This biography synthesizes recent New Deal scholarship and photographic history and probes the unique regional histories of the Pacific West, the Plains, and the South. Langes life illuminates critical transformations in the U.S., specifically womens evolving social roles and the states growing capacity to support vulnerable citizens. The author utilizes the concept of care work, the devalued nurturing of others, often considered womens work, to analyze Langes photography and reassert its power to provoke social change. Langes portrayal of the Depressions ravages is enmeshed in a deeply political project still debated today, of the nature of governmental responsibility toward citizens basic needs.
Students and the general reader will find this a powerful and insightful introduction to Dorothea Lange, her work, and legacy. Dorothea Lange, Documentary Photography, and Twentieth-Century America makes a compelling case for the continuing political and social significance of Langes work, as she recorded persistent injustices such as poverty, labor exploitation, racism, and environmental degradation.
Carol Quirke is a professor of American Studies at the State University of New York, Old Westbury, USA. She teaches womens history, U.S. history, and visual culture. Her previous book Eyes on Labor: News Photography and Americas Working Class (2012) examines the political stakes of news photography for organized labor in Americas midcentury. Her essays appear in American Quarterly, Radical History Review, History Today , and Reviews in American History.
LIVES OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Series editor: Carol Berkin
Selected and edited by renowned womens historian Carol Berkin, these brief, affordably priced biographies are designed for use in undergraduate courses. Rather than taking a comprehensive approach, each biography focuses instead on a particular aspect of a womens life that is emblematic of her time or made her a pivotal figure in her era. The emphasis is on a good read, featuring accessible writing and compelling narratives, without sacrificing sound scholarship and academic integrity. Primary sources are included at the end of each biography, alongside study questions and an annotated bibliography, which support the student reader.
https://www.routledge.com/Lives-of-American-Women/book-series/LIVESAMWOMEN
Barbara Egger Lennon
Teacher, Mother, Activist
Tina Stewart Brakebill
Julia Lathrop
Social Service and Progressive Government
Miriam Cohen
Mary Pickford
Women, Film and Selling Girlhood
Kathleen A. Feeley
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Modern American Revolutionary
Lara Vapnek
Dorothea Lange, Documentary Photography, and Twentieth-Century America
Reinventing Self and Nation
Carol Quirke
DOROTHEA LANGE, DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY, AND TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA
Reinventing Self and Nation
Carol Quirke
First published 2019
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The right of Carol Quirke to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Quirke, Carol, author.
Title: Dorothea Lange, documentary photography, and twentieth-century America: reinventing self and nation Carol Quirke.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York: Routledge, [2019] | Series: Lives of american women | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018043385 | ISBN 9781138394353 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9780813348599 (pbk.: alk. paper) | ISBN 9780429028151 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Lange, Dorothea. | Women photographersUnited StatesBiography. | WomenUnited StatesHistory20th century.
Classification: LCC TR140.L3 Q57 2019 | DDC 770.82dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018043385
ISBN: 978-1-138-39435-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-8133-4859-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-02815-1 (ebk)
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For my anchor, Quinn
Dorothea Langes haunting photograph, Migrant Mother, is perhaps the most familiar image of the Depression era. With one snap of the camera, Lange captured both the anxiety and the steely determination to survive that was the story of dislocation and suffering in the wake of the collapse of the American economy. But Lange should be remembered for more than this single portrait. As Carol Quirke shows us, Lange not only took tens of thousands of photos that chronicled the lives of Americas poor, she also played a central role in the development of documentary photography. Throughout her life, Lange used the camera to educate, to inform, and to establish, as Quirke puts it, the relationships between citizens of different regions, means, races, and gender. In this sense, her craft was as profoundly political as it was artistic. Through that craft, Lange revealed her strong support for the welfare programs established in the New Deal. She was an advocate for the women and men of rural America throughout her career.
Quirke traces Langes career, as she built a successful portrait business in California during the prosperous years before the Depression and later, as she used her camera to support President Roosevelts policies. In her personal life, Lange flouted many of the rules governing traditional expectations for women. She set out on her own when she was a teenager, exploring New York City with male as well as female friends. She divorced a first husband and married for a second time. Yet she never abandoned her own career during either marriage. However, as Quirke astutely points out, Lange accepted womens traditional work in her everyday life: she did the cooking, cleaning, and arranging of the schedules of her family just as women in the American pastand the presenthave always done. It is perhaps ironic that, although she firmly believed that women had an inborn impulse to nurture, Lange herself struggled with motherhood.
