Dorothea Lange

[renee_monrose]

I am doing some research on Dorothea Lange and want to find out if and

how she influenced photographing the poor? Was she influenced by Jacob

Riis and Lewis Hines? I read an interview where she said she wasn't

but is this possible? Did her particular way of photographing the poor

change the way photographers approached this subject? Was there any

controversy about the way she photographed these people? We're

focussing on The Migrant Mother but I'm trying to put her in a larger

historical context.

[edlark]

Renee,

 

Do your own homework.

[william_hahn1]

If you can, find a video called "Dorothea Lange: A Visual Life"

which has extensive audio of her describing her photographs,

plus some comments from one of her assistants about the way she

worked. I'm not sure it will answer your questions, but you will

get a sense of how she thought/worked.

[mark_b.]

Try this website: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/oct11.html

 

The Farm Security Administration (FSA) documentary work is pretty amazing. A local college here in Vermont, Middlebury College, just put together an exhibit of Vermont FSA work this past fall.

[matt_m__toronto_]

E S...what would you say the point of this forum is? talk about gear all the time???

[klix]

The Migrant Mother is my all-time favorite. Dorothea Lange, along with Horace Bristol, brought to light the plight of the Dust Bowl migrant workers in the 30's and represent some of the finest examples in capturing the human condition and people in their social context.

 

You may want to explore their working relationhsip and how they influenced each other. If you're not familiar with Horace Bristol, read "The Grapes of Wrath." John Steinbeck borrowed his characters from Horace Bristol's images of the 30's Dust Bowl in Central CA.

 

As far as controversy, my understanding is that there's 10 different versions of the Migrant Mother -- finding out why there are so many versions should give you a lot of insight into Dorothea Lange's thoughts on photography.

[andrew_somerset1]

"If you're not familiar with Horace Bristol, read "The Grapes of Wrath." John Steinbeck borrowed his characters from Horace Bristol's images of the 30's Dust Bowl in Central CA."

 

First, what dustbowl? California in the 1930s was a rich farming area and the problem was not drought or loss of topsoil but very low wages in a glutted labour market of displaced migrants.

 

Steinbeck did not borrow his characters from a Horace Bristol; he went out into the field and talked to and worked alongside migrant workers, and produced not one but three novels dealing with their plight -- as well as non-fiction work which Life magazine refused to publish because they thought it too political.

 

They did, however, publish the photographs of Horace Bristol, who was assigned to accompany Steinbeck for the piece. (Steinbeck described him, in a letter, as a staff photographer for Life, but I don't know if that's accurate.)

 

So by all means, read the Grapes of Wrath -- to get a first-hand (fictional) perspective that the photos of the era can't show. You might read In Dubious Battle while you're at it.

[klix]

Andrew - not to turn this into a literary forum, but...

 

"Horace Bristol's images of the 30's Dust Bowl in Central CA."

 

MY TYPO -- that should've read ..."of the 30's Dust Bowl migrants in Central CA." 30's Central CA was not a Dust Bowl, but the Great Plains that these migrant workers left sure was.

 

As for Bristol's photographs' influence on Steinbeck, there is some evidence to support it, notwithstanding the fact that Steinbeck never acknowledged it. Yes, of course, Steinbeck was there -- at Bristol's behest.

 

Here's a short write up of researched history from the Crocker Art Museum.

 

http://www.crockerartmuseum.org/exhibits/exhibit_pages/grapesofwrath.htm

[klix]

ANOTHER DOSE OF REALITY

 

One other thing... The Stephen Cohen Museum in LA published a portfolio about 10 years ago with Bristol's commentaries linking the images to passages in The Grapes of Wrath.

 

Real enough for you???

[roberto_lins]

MORE REALITY COMING...

 

The Farm Security Administration (FSA) actually hired photographers

to "sell" to the public images with a very defined content in mind.

Despite of the crisis, low wage, migrant displacement, human elements

are shown as proud of their hard work, full of strenght (The Migrant Mother,

for example), satisfied and looking forward to the future. I'm *NOT* saying that

Lange didn't do a fabulous body of work, just that her photographs

may speak little about the social reality then.

 

Now, go figure why Walker Evans

was kicked out of the FSA...

[andrew_somerset1]

Jack,

 

My objection to this notion that The Grapes of Wrath was somehow based on Bristol's photography is that you're creating an image of Steinbeck sitting at home in Salinas until Bristol comes up with the idea. Now, it seems that anything I see on a photography site plays up Bristol's role, but then, they're making a case for his importance, aren't they?

 

The facts are that Steinbeck was visiting migrant camps before he ever met Bristol, so portraying Horace Bristol as the mind who created The Grapes of Wrath is a distortion that grossly overstates his influence on Steinbeck -- no matter how many websites you come up with to substantiate it.

 

(By the way, from Steinbeck's letters, the Fortune assignment that Steinbeck rejected predated the Life assignment, despite what that website says. Now, perhaps Steinbeck downplayed Bristol's role -- but could it be that Bristol and his proponents are playing up Bristol's?)

 

The Grapes of Wrath is dedicated "to Tom, who lived it," which refers to Tom Collins, the manager of the Weedpatch migrant camp with whom Steinbeck was working as early as 1936. He had hatched the idea to do a novel dealing with Okie migrants as early as late summer 1937, when he met with Dr Will Alexander of the FSA to discuss the idea and make formal arrangements to work with Collins. Bristol didn't enter the scene until early 1938, when Steinbeck went with him to see the flooding in the Visalia region.

 

Steinbeck was working with Tom Collins in the Visalia region in February of 1938, and did not go there with Bristol until March 1938, according to Steinbeck biographer Jay Parini.

 

In a letter to his agent, dated Feb. 14 1937, Steinbeck speaks of plans to go to Visalia to write news stories at the request of the resettlement administration. In another letter, dated March 7, he refers to the project with Horace Bristol, saying that he went down to Visalia for Life, having refused to do it for Fortune because he didn't like the audience. In this letter he speaks of an arrangement with Life whereby they agreed not to change his article, which probably led to the story's being killed.

 

Life ran Bristol's pictures from Visalia only after The Grapes of Wrath was published. As to the idea that Steinbeck drew characters from the photos, I'm not aware of any evidence that he even saw the photos before the Grapes of Wrath saw print.

 

Regarding the genesis of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck was at work on a novel on the plight of the migrants before meeting Bristol, but it was not progressing well. He had chosen to focus on the farmers who were exploiting them and found himself unable to write anything that would not come off as spiteful and small-minded. After his trip to Visalia (which provided the climactic flood of The Grapes of Wrath), Steinbeck changed his approach to focus on the point of view of the migrants themselves. Whether Bristol had anything to do with that is anyone's guess.

 

Incidentally, there's no record in Steinbeck's published letters or in any Steinbeck biography that I've read of any planned book project with Horace Bristol. Since Steinbeck's biographers have documented his every sneeze with reference to book ideas, this seems to indicate that if Bristol did propose such a project, Steinbeck never took it seriously. I'm not aware of any evidence supporting Bristol's claim that Steinbeck agreed to do a book with him and then backed out.

 

That's a lot more writing than I wanted to do on this subject. Anyway, the point is this: claims that Bristol or his photography inspired the Grapes of Wrath aren't supported by the available evidence. The only support for those claims seems to be statements made by Bristol himself long after the fact. None of that denigrates Bristol as a photographer.

[klix]

Thanks Andrew -- if there isn't one, there should be a literary equivalent of photo.net for these kinds of healthy discussions.

[leslie_cheung]

i believe there is a biography of roy stryker which contains great

info on the fsa. the various walker evans bio also would have

different perspective.

 

evan got fired because he didn't care much about the fsa and their

"government propanganda." evans was more concerned with art and agee

liked booze and the ladies though >now let us prasied famous man< is

still lengendary.

 

there's a new book on lange i saw at boders last week. lots of texts

and some notes by ralph gibson among others. it should help as w

[alison_c]

You have to look more fully at her work with the FSA - focusing only on the Migrant Mother isn't representative of her work. There are six images of Florence Thompson (the migrant mother) and her children. Many of her other FSA photographs ignore the devastation of the depression and even some of the shots of the Migrant Mother series do not isolate the hardships of poverty at the time. One of the images, where the oldest daughter is in a rocking chair seems almost dreamy. Check out the wife and children of a tobacco sharecropper on their front porch.