Procedure
1) Make a list of every
detail that you see in the
photo. Consider how you
would describe the photo to
someone who was blind or
had never seen it before.
2) Come up with a title for
the picture.
______________________
3) Share your details with
your classmates.
4) Vote and choose the top
two or three winning titles.
5) Choose one of the titles
and write briefly why you
think it is the best title for
the photograph.
“Migrant Mother” (1936)
Dorothea Lange
The photograph that has become known as "Migrant Mother" is one of a series
of photographs that Dorothea Lange took of Florence Owens Thompson and
her children in February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. Lange was
concluding a month's trip photographing migratory farm labor around the state
for what was then the Resettlement
Quote by Lange
“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember
how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I
made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her
history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. 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. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and
seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. “
As one of the most powerful images of the Depression- era, Migrant Mother
reflects the victims that suffered the most in the United States during the 1930s.
Florence Owens Thompson was born in Oklahoma in 1903.
She came from a poor family. She married in 1921, and she
and her husband moved to California for work. They moved
three times in three years to find work, mostly on farms.
Thompson’s husband died in 1931. Florence had four children,
and was pregnant with her fifth child. They continued to move
around California to find work. The family moved back to
Oklahoma for a little while before returning to California. They
were very poor. At one time, they lived under a bridge in
Bakersfield. In 1936, Florence Owens Thompson was driving
down Highway 101 with her family and serious boyfriend. The
car broke down at a camp for poor people. The boyfriend and
two of her sons went for help. Florence and her young children
waited for them. At this time, Dorothea Lange drove by. She
was taking pictures of poor people during the Great Depression.
Over 10 minutes she took five pictures of the Thompson family.
The photograph helped make Dorothea Lange famous. But it
didn’t help Florence Owens Thompson. She said that Lange
promised to send her a copy of the picture, and that she never
made any money from it. She died of cancer in 1983.
Tent City – 2009 – Sacramento
Tent City – 2012 – Lakewood, NJ
• Creative Writing Topics- Choose 1 – 1 page
hand written
• A) Describe a personal photograph that is
important to you. (Remember I have never seen
it!) Why is that photograph so important to you?
Bring it in to show your classmates.
• B) Is there a personal moment in your life you
wish you had a picture of? Describe everything
you can remember about that moment. Why do
you wish you had a photograph of that moment?