History HW - Write 2 page paper,answer 13 questions, create complex thesis per instructions

The New Deal 703

History ThroughHistory Through

“Migrant Mother” became one of the most recognizable symbols of the Depression and perhaps the strongest argument in support of New Deal relief programs. Roy Stryker, who hired Lange to document the harsh living conditions of the time, described the mother: “She has all the suffering of mankind in her, but all the perseverance too. A restraint and a strange courage.”

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“MIGRANT MOTHER” (1936), DOROTHEA LANGE

In Februar y 1936, Dorothea Lange visited a camp in Nipomo, California, where some 2,500 destitute pea pickers lived in tents or, like this mother of seven children, in lean-tos. Lange talked briefly to the woman and then took five pictures, successively moving closer to her subjects and directing more emphasis on the mother. The last photo, “Migrant Mother” (at right), was published in the San Francisco News March 10, 1936.

Lange reflected upon her assignment. “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. . . . She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food.”

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SKILLBUILDER Interpreting Visual Sources 1. What might the woman be thinking about?

Why do you think so? 2. Why do you think “Migrant Mother” was effective in

persuading people to support FDR’s relief programs?

SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R23.