Richmond, California/It Was Never Like This Back Home, Dorothea Lange, about 1943
• What can you say about the woman in this picture?
• Where was Lange standing when she took this photograph?
• How does the low vantage point affect your impression of this woman?
• How would you describe the expression on her face?
• How would you describe this woman's life? What do you see in the picture that gives you clues about it?
• Why do you think she is wearing a dressy fur coat in the middle of a sunny day?
• How would you explain the title of this picture, It Was Never Like This Back Home?
• Why do you think that women were suddenly welcomed into the work force in the 1940s?
• What can you say about the woman in this picture?
• Where was Lange standing when she took this photograph?
• How does the low vantage point affect your impression of this woman?
• How would you describe the expression on her face?
• How would you describe this woman's life? What do you see in the picture that gives you clues about it?
• Why do you think she is wearing a dressy fur coat in the middle of a sunny day?
• How would you explain the title of this picture, It Was Never Like This Back Home?
• Why do you think that women were suddenly welcomed into the work force in the 1940s?
Background Information - Lange and her friend of many years, photographer Ansel Adams, were hired by Fortune magazine to document a twenty-four-hour cycle in the life of Richmond, California's Kaiser shipyard. The woman pictured here was one of the many newcomers to this town in the 1940s. Richmond saw astonishingly rapid growth during World War II as Kaiser built 727 ships. By 1944, the shipyard employed almost 100,000 workers. Since it was active round the clock in order to build ships as rapidly as possible, many businesses in Richmond stayed open twenty-four hours a day to meet the needs of off-shift defense workers. This woman may well have worked a swing or night shift and was taking an opportunity to dress up in her jewelry and evening furs for a special outing during her free time in the middle of a sunny day. Seen from a low vantage point, she stands proudly in front of a café. During the war, thousands of women joined the work force for the first time, often earning the same wages paid to men; perhaps this circumstance, too, underlies her happy and confident gaze.
This casual portrait does not betray the racial tensions that troubled Richmond at the time the picture was made. The town was undergoing a sudden enormous increase in its population of African-American residents, many of whom had abandoned the southern United States and its sharecropping system. They received equal pay, but the unions blocked them, the supervisors resisted promoting them (a problem shared by female shipyard workers of all races), and the local white people—many of them Dust Bowl refugees of the 1930s—did not understand them.
This casual portrait does not betray the racial tensions that troubled Richmond at the time the picture was made. The town was undergoing a sudden enormous increase in its population of African-American residents, many of whom had abandoned the southern United States and its sharecropping system. They received equal pay, but the unions blocked them, the supervisors resisted promoting them (a problem shared by female shipyard workers of all races), and the local white people—many of them Dust Bowl refugees of the 1930s—did not understand them.
Dust Bowl Refugees Arrive in California, Dorothea Lange, 1936
• What can you say about the people in this picture?
• How can you tell that the people in this picture are moving rather than just taking a trip somewhere?
• Can you identify any of the things tied to the car?
• What kind of trip do you think this group has just had? Describe how one day of their journey might have gone.
• What do you think these people might have done after they arrived in California?
• Block out the parts of the photograph as indicated by the crop lines. Does it look any different to you? Does it change the mood or message of the picture?
• Do you think this is a good picture to illustrate the story of people fleeing the Dust Bowl? What other scenes might a newspaper have used to show the situation of Dust Bowl refugees?
• Why do you think that this image did not spark the same concern and outrage that Migrant Mother did among viewers?
Background Information - This photograph was published in the New York Times on July 5, 1936, with the caption "'A Family Unit in The Flight From Drought'/Dust Bowl Refugees Reach a 'Promised Land'—California." The orange crop marks and notes are directions to the printer that were made by New York Times staff. They indicate that the already tightly composed image should be printed as an even more tightly framed picture, focusing closely on the jalopy crammed with people and their worn belongings, including quilts, pans, a stove, a bag of rice, and luggage. Note that while people nowadays are accustomed to viewing Lange's work as "fine art," the newspaper staff felt free to crop Lange's image because it had been provided to them as a document, not a work of art. The travelers were among the thousands from the heartland of America who had seen their prospects as farmers blow away in the dust storms of the 1930s. One man from Oklahoma recalled his early childhood in the Dust Bowl: "For a three-year-old kid, you just go outside and play, dust blows and sand blows, and you don't know any different. One evening a black duster come in here from the north. We had kerosene lamps. And it got so dark you couldn't see with kerosene lamps." No longer able to sustain their farms, and lured by advertisements and rumors that promised a sunny agricultural paradise with jobs for all who were willing to work, families journeyed to California with as many of their possessions as they could pack inside or tie onto their car.
• What can you say about the people in this picture?
• How can you tell that the people in this picture are moving rather than just taking a trip somewhere?
• Can you identify any of the things tied to the car?
• What kind of trip do you think this group has just had? Describe how one day of their journey might have gone.
• What do you think these people might have done after they arrived in California?
• Block out the parts of the photograph as indicated by the crop lines. Does it look any different to you? Does it change the mood or message of the picture?
• Do you think this is a good picture to illustrate the story of people fleeing the Dust Bowl? What other scenes might a newspaper have used to show the situation of Dust Bowl refugees?
• Why do you think that this image did not spark the same concern and outrage that Migrant Mother did among viewers?
Background Information - This photograph was published in the New York Times on July 5, 1936, with the caption "'A Family Unit in The Flight From Drought'/Dust Bowl Refugees Reach a 'Promised Land'—California." The orange crop marks and notes are directions to the printer that were made by New York Times staff. They indicate that the already tightly composed image should be printed as an even more tightly framed picture, focusing closely on the jalopy crammed with people and their worn belongings, including quilts, pans, a stove, a bag of rice, and luggage. Note that while people nowadays are accustomed to viewing Lange's work as "fine art," the newspaper staff felt free to crop Lange's image because it had been provided to them as a document, not a work of art. The travelers were among the thousands from the heartland of America who had seen their prospects as farmers blow away in the dust storms of the 1930s. One man from Oklahoma recalled his early childhood in the Dust Bowl: "For a three-year-old kid, you just go outside and play, dust blows and sand blows, and you don't know any different. One evening a black duster come in here from the north. We had kerosene lamps. And it got so dark you couldn't see with kerosene lamps." No longer able to sustain their farms, and lured by advertisements and rumors that promised a sunny agricultural paradise with jobs for all who were willing to work, families journeyed to California with as many of their possessions as they could pack inside or tie onto their car.
Go back to section 18A: remember how Lange had taken several pictures of the "Migrant Mother's" camp? Here are some of the other images from that series. Do you think any of them are as striking as the very famous "Migrant Mother"? Why or why not?
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