Dorothea Lange was an accomplished American documentary photographer and photojournalist. She was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on May 26, 1895. Lange apprenticed herself in a series of New York studios, including that of Arnold Genthe, to gain photography skills.
Lange’s Depression-era photographs for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) became her most well-known body of work. Her portraits of displaced farmers during the Great Depression had a significant impact on later documentary and journalistic photography. Moreover, Lange’s photographs helped to humanize the consequences of the economic crisis by bringing into focus the struggles and hardships experienced by ordinary citizens.
Lange believed that photographs could be used as a means to teach people ‘how to see without a camera.’ Her work influenced the development of documentary photography and encouraged other photographers to take up social activism through their chosen medium.
Throughout her career, Lange received many accolades for her work, including two Guggenheim fellowships and numerous exhibitions in prestigious galleries such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Dorothea Lange is considered one of the preeminent and pioneering documentary photographers of the 20th century because she was able to capture raw images that captured human emotion during difficult times such as economic depressions or migrant worker fields.