Migrant Mother
"A legend of the strength of American motherhood"
Alex Q. Arbuckle
1936
Dorothea Lange's 1936 photograph of a worried migrant mother is the single most iconic image of the Great Depression, and one of the most famous pictures of all time, yet for decades after it was taken, almost nothing was known about its subject.In 1903, Florence Leona Christie was born in Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma, the daughter of Cherokees displaced from their native tribal land.She married her first husband at 17, and started a family while working in the farms and mills of northern California. She gave birth to her sixth child in 1931, six months after her husband died of tuberculosis. She had another child by a California businessman, and ultimately three more with Jim Hill, a bartender and butcher from Los Angeles. She worked a litany of jobs, day and night, to keep them fed.
I worked in hospitals. I tended bar. I cooked. I worked in the fields. I done a little bit of everything to make a living for my kids. - Florence Owens Thompson
In March of 1936, she, Hill and the children were driving on Highway 101, hoping to find lettuce-picking work near Watsonville, when their car broke down near Nipomo.They pulled into a camp of nearly 3,500 pea pickers, who had come seeking work but were left stranded when the crops were ruined by freezing rain. While Hill and her sons went into town to get parts for the car, Florence and her daughters waited in a crude lean-to. There, they were approached by a woman hefting a Graflex 4 x 5 camera.
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. - Dorothea Lange
The woman was Dorothea Lange, who was coming to the end of a month-long assignment photographing migrant farm workers around California for the Resettlement Administration, which would later become the Farm Security Administration. Lange took six images of the family over ten minutes. She did not ask for names.
We got the radiator fixed and hurried back to camp to fix the car. When we got there, Mama told us there had been this lady who had been taking pictures, but that’s all she told us, you know. It wasn’t a big deal to her at the time. - Troy Owens
Lange left the camp and filed the photos to the Resettlement Administration, as well as the San Francisco News. The photos motivated an emergency delivery of food aid to the stranded pea pickers, but Florence and her family had already moved on. On March 11, the sixth image, a portrait of an apprehensive Florence, accompanied an editorial in the News with the headline, “What Does the ’New Deal’ Mean to This Mother and Her Children?” Florence’s children saw the photo in a paper and showed it to their mother, who had little reaction.While the “Migrant Mother” image circulated and became one of the most iconic and famous photographs of all time, drawing praise for Lange and the concerned photographers of the FSA, Florence continued to toil to support her family, eventually settling down in Modesto. She finally achieved a degree of financial security after World War II, when she married hospital administrator George Thompson.
Mother was a woman who loved to enjoy life, who loved her children. She loved music and she loved to dance. When I look at that photo of mother, it saddens me. That’s not how I like to remember her. - Norma Rydlewski
Florence was not publicly identified as the “Migrant Mother” until 1978. The photograph was a source of some resentment for her and her children — it reduced them to nameless icons of suffering, and its fame did nothing to improve their material conditions. The only benefit they gained from the photo came at the end of Florence’s life. In 1983, she was suffering from cancer and a recent stroke, and the cost of her care was proving untenable for her family. They put out a public appeal, asking for funds to help nurse the “Migrant Mother" back to health.Donations poured in from across the country, accompanied by letters from people who had drawn strength and inspiration from the photo of Florence. The appeal raised more than $35,000.
On September 16, 1983, Florence Owens Thompson died surrounded by her family, who had clung to her in the famous photograph. Her gravestone reads “Migrant Mother — A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood."
