Migrant Pea Pickers Home, Nipomo, California
Artist
Dorothea Lange
(American, 1895 - 1965)
DateNegative February 1936, print circa 1936
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 10 1/2 × 13 3/4 in. (26.7 × 34.9 cm)
Support: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm)
Mat: 16 1/4 × 20 3/8 in. (41.3 × 51.8 cm)
Support: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm)
Mat: 16 1/4 × 20 3/8 in. (41.3 × 51.8 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of William H. Redd and James T. Redd III, in memory of their father, James T. Redd Jr., 2021
Object number2021.3.4
DescriptionHorizontal landscape composition of migrant camp with dirt, scrub, and tree branches in foreground. At left is a car with an Oklahoma license plate that is partially covered by part of a tent at left. In front of the tent is a woman in a dark dress with her right hand touching a toddler-aged child in a dress standing at her side. In her left hand she holds in the crook of her arm another child. On the other side of a dirt road are other tents, another car, and a woman in a light-colored dress. Landscape includes pine trees and one leafy tree.eMuseum Notes
What we now call the Dust Bowl was a large-scale environmental disaster that resulted in a mass exodus from America’s plains states toward California to look for jobs and new opportunities. Photographer Dorothea Lange made this image at a camp for agricultural workers while she was working for the federal Resettlement Administration (later the Farm Security Administration). Her assignment was to show the poor living conditions of displaced families and their need for assistance. Lange made her well-known and much discussed image “Migrant Mother” in Nipomo, as well, hoping to put a face to the plight of so many.
On View
Not on view
