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| White Angel Breadline |
Artist: Dorothea Lange
Title: White Angel Breadline
Medium: Photography (Gelatin silver print)
Date: 1933
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| Dorothea Lange |
Dorothea Lange was an American photographer who took some of the most iconic images of the impact of the Great Depression on American society. She was best know for her Depression-era work for the FSA (Farm Security Administration) who sent a group of photographers out to document conditions nationwide to build public support for government improvement programs. She profoundly influenced the development of documentary photography.
This particular photo is one of her most celebrated ones. Desperate to make extra money under the oppressive weight of the Depression she took down her camera, went into the streets of San Francisco and started to humanize the tragedy she saw through the lens of her camera. She went from operating her own portrait studio to document human tragedy in a way that had not been done before pulled by both ethical and economic reasons. This photo is her very first. The photograph shows a man waiting in line for food at a soup kitchen in San Francisco run by a widow called "White Angel".
The photo itself has a powerful impact. Any person who has had to rely off the charity of others in order to eat can immediately relate to this man. This situation is painful and cruel, all these men are without work and food. Yet this one solitary man with his hands clasped together almost in prayer around his empty cup seems to represent all the men as a whole. You wonder what his inner thoughts must be? Is he worried, anxious, hungry, tired, terrified? Does he place his future in thoughts of God or is he silently angry in his waiting? He looks dignified in his strife. This photo humanizes this hardworking man who must now beg for food, it makes you think how easily it could be you standing in that line. The way that she took the photograph from up above it is almost the view that God would see. I wonder if he answered that man's prayers for food that day? This photo was taken with great compassion and sympathy for her fellow man, at least that is how I feel when I see it.
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| Alternate view |
Not only did Lange photograph people affected by the Depression, she also took several other series of pictures of great notoriety, share-croppers, migrant workers, farm families, Japanese Americans interned after Pearl Harbor, the displaced farmers of the Dust Bowl, and many more throughout her lifetime. She was the first woman to be awarded the Guggenheim fellowship for her photography.
The Great Depression in 1929 impacted many country's especially the United States. We saw an unheard of plummet in personal income, profits and international trade while unemployment soared. Most of our country found themselves penniless, homeless and starving. It was not until the advent of WWII in 1941 that America finally shook the devastating effects of the Great Depression. Lange was instrumental in documenting the people of this era. She helped usher in a new method of photography. Documentary photography is used to chronicle significant and historical events. The photographer captures the subject in a way that is truthful, objective, and candid. She captured this time in our history with a raw honesty and sincere compassion for mankind.
