U3 I Am An American Blast

Dorothea Lange: Voice of the Downtrodden

How can photojournalists help stand up for others?

Background

Nonviolent protests aren't the only way to stand up for your rights or the rights of others—another

way to draw awareness to a cause that you care about is through art or media. Photojournalism, or the
relating of news through photographs, can have a strong impact on the world. One photojournalist who
changed the way people thought was Dorothea Lange.

Dorothea Lange was born in 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey. When she was seven years old, she

suffered from polio, which left one of her legs withered and her foot painfully twisted. This made walking
difficult for Dorothea, but she didn’t let that stop her. She was interested in art and photography from a
young age, and after she graduated from high school she pursued a career in photography. Dorothea
was mostly interested in portraiture, and she set up a small portrait studio in San Francisco.

In the 1920s, Dorothea took a road trip around the American southwest, and it was there that she

first became interested in photographing people as they went about their everyday lives. She took
many photographs of Native Americans. When she started seeing the effects of the Great Depression in
her own San Francisco neighborhood in the early 1930s, Dorothea began photographing people in
bread lines and labor strikes. She wanted to capture the battles that these people were fighting just to
survive.

Background

Nonviolent protests aren't the only way to stand up for your rights or the rights of others—another

way to draw awareness to a cause that you care about is through art or media. Photojournalism, or the
relating of news through photographs, can have a strong impact on the world. One photojournalist who
changed the way people thought was Dorothea Lange.

Dorothea Lange was born in 1895 in Hoboken, New Jersey. When she was seven years old, she

suffered from polio, which left one of her legs withered and her foot painfully twisted. This made walking
difficult for Dorothea, but she didn’t let that stop her. She was interested in art and photography from a
young age, and after she graduated from high school she pursued a career in photography. Dorothea
was mostly interested in portraiture, and she set up a small portrait studio in San Francisco.

In the 1920s, Dorothea took a road trip around the American southwest, and it was there that she

first became interested in photographing people as they went about their everyday lives. She took
many photographs of Native Americans. When she started seeing the effects of the Great Depression in
her own San Francisco neighborhood in the early 1930s, Dorothea began photographing people in
bread lines and labor strikes. She wanted to capture the battles that these people were fighting just to
survive.

Open Ended

How can photojournalists help stand up for others?

Poll

What do you think is the most important quality in a photojournalist?

• Ambition - in order to enact change, a photojournalist needs to be famous enough for people to see his or her work.

• Good listening - so that people will open up and tell their stories, which makes for more compelling photographs.

• Desire to travel - a photojournalist needs to be willing to seek out injustice to portray, no matter where in the world it happens.

• Approximate number of people who migrated to California during the Great Depression.

Multiple Choice

Number Crush! Take a guess what the number 2,500,000 means?!

• Approximate number of people who fled the Dust Bowl by 1940 because of the drought and famine.

• Approximate number of people living in the United States in 1940.

• Approximate number of people who died in the Dust Bowl by 1940 due to the drought and famine.

• Approximate number of people who migrated to California during the Great Depression.