reminiscent of the modernist technique of using a part
to represent the whole. InHeading Towards Los
Angeles, California, 1937, Lange photographs two
men walking on a desolate road. Lange shows the
injustices of society by framing her image with these
men to the left of the picture and a billboard advertise-
menttotherightthatshowsanimageofamanreclined
in achair accompanied by, ‘‘NextTime, Trythe Train,
RELAX, Southern Pacific.’’ This ironic juxtaposition
using figures and text powerfully depicts the misfor-
tune of the people she saw around her.
Lange and Taylor eventually published many of
these images in 1939 in a book titled,An American
Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion.Thisproject
was intended by Lange and Taylor to be a docu-
ment—a photographic and textual representation—
conveying the underlying causes of the rural pov-
erty. According to Henry Mayer inThe Making of a
Documentary Book
While public opinion sought causes of this shift in the
misfortunes of nature—drought and dust storms—the
authors ofAn American Exoduspassionately insisted
that deeper causes lay in a moral callousness about the
social effects of mechanization and in political indiffer-
ence to the poor and the voiceless.
(p. i)
After working for the FSA, Lange, who believed
in the social and political importance of her photo-
graphs, began working for the Bureau of Agricul-
tural Economics. Shortly thereafter, in 1941, Lange
was the first woman to be awarded a John Simon
Guggenheim fellowship.
The following year, Lange worked for the War
Relocation Authority, the government agency res-
ponsible for forcing 110,000 Japanese Americans
into internment camps after the bombing of Pearl
Harbor. She and Ansel Adams both took many pic-
tures of the internment camp in Manzanar, Califor-
nia.Lange’ssensitiverepresentationsofthepeopleat
the camps confirm her conviction against this gov-
ernment program; her powerful images of displaced
children such asJapanese American Children, Hay-
ward, California, 1942andPledge of Allegiance, San
Francisco, California, 1942communicate her disap-
proval of the project.
Lange later photographed for the Office of War
Information and was assigned to report on the
minority groups on the West Coast. She again
collaborated with Ansel Adams on recording the
wartime expansion of the ‘‘boom-town’’ of Rich-
mond, California, as military vessel construction
filled their shipyards.
During the postwar period, Lange suffered from
health problems that kept her from photographing
on a regular basis for several years. When she was
able to work again, she did a photo essay with
Adams on the Mormons forLifemagazine, and
Lifethen sent her to Ireland to do a story titled,
Irish Country People.
In 1953 and 1954, Lange participated actively in
the preparation of theThe Family of Manexhibition,
held at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1955
and which subsequently traveled extensively around
the world. During this time, she advised and ex-
changed ideas about the exhibition with Edward
Steichen, with whom she had a long lasting and
close friendship. Ultimately, eight of Lange’s images
were included in this seminal exhibition.
At this time Lange also worked on a story forLife
magazine on the daily life of a public defender in
Oakland. Lange focused on the faces, expressions,
and gestures of the public defender as well as all
those in the courthouse such as inThe Witness, Pub-
lic Defender, Oakland, California, 1955–1957.Life
did not end up publishing the story but it was pub-
lished by newspaper supplementThis Weekin 1960.
In the 1950s Lange began to take more and more
photographs of her own family. She also accompa-
nied Taylor, who had become an economic consul-
tant for rural questions in developing countries, on
various assignments. They traveled to Asia, South
America, and Egypt where Lange continued to
photograph, emphasizing the features and gestures
of her subjects. Lange’s close up portraits are direct
and honest, a style that dates back to her FSA
days, such as the portrait,Palestinian, 1958.
In 1962, many of Lange’s FSA images were
shown in Steichen’s exhibition at the MoMA,The
Bitter Years. In 1965, one of her last projects was a
book of many of her images of women titled,The
American Country Woman, a book intended to show
the courage and purpose of many of her subjects.
In 1964 and 1965, Lange was involved in select-
ing works from her entire career, without limiting
the photographs to her well known Depression-era
images for the retrospective at MoMA, which
appeared in 1966. Lange died of cancer on October
11, 1965, weeks after choosing the last images for
her retrospective. Her images have been exhibited
and published worldwide and her archives, includ-
ing negatives, prints, books, letters, contact sheets,
and notes are held at the Oakland Museum of Art
in California.
KristenGresh
Seealso:Adams, Ansel; Cunningham, Imogen; Doc-
umentary Photography; Evans, Walker; Farm Security
Administration; Group f/64; Hine, Lewis; Lee, Russell;
Life Magazine; Museum of Modern Art; Office ofLANGE, DOROTHEA