How the Migrants Live, Kern County, California
Artist
Dorothea Lange
(American, 1895 - 1965)
DateNegative March 1936, printed 1930s
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 10 9/16 × 13 3/4 in. (26.8 × 34.9 cm)
Support: 11 × 14 1/8 in. (27.9 × 35.9 cm)
Mat: 16 3/8 × 20 3/8 in. (41.6 × 51.8 cm)
Support: 11 × 14 1/8 in. (27.9 × 35.9 cm)
Mat: 16 3/8 × 20 3/8 in. (41.6 × 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 number2021.3.5
DescriptionHorizontal landscape composition with a muddy ditch and metal barrel in foreground. Middle ground is delineated by a barbed wire fence attached to wooden fence posts. Behind the fence is a large tent with closed flaps, surrounded with evidence of an encampment such as buckets and laundry hanging to dry. A woman doing some kind of work, possibly washing, kneels in front of the tent.eMuseum Notes
Dorothea Lange worked as a photographer for the federal government’s Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency created in May 1935 that later became the Farm Security Administration. Its initial goals were to relocate low-income families to planned communities where they could own a home, get a job, and grow their own food. Lange often focused her camera on the deplorable living conditions of migrant workers in California, a place where many had traveled to escape the Dust Bowl and look for jobs. This image of a woman doing her housekeeping at a tent surrounded by mud speaks volumes about the depth of the country’s economic crisis and the human spirit of endurance.
On View
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