Dorothea Lange

Supported by government programs and new picture magazines like LIFE, Dorothea Lange and other photographers of the 1930s and '40s created an indelible record of everyday life in difficult times. The Great Depression caused many photographers to consider the camera as an instrument of social change. Foremost among this group was Berkeley photographer Dorothea Lange, whose intimate pictures of people in distress were driven by a deep personal empathy. She continued her intensely personal work after the Depression, creating series on the forced relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II, Irish country life, and postwar suburban California, among many other projects. The Oakland Museum of California houses Lange’s personal archive, a gift from the artist that includes 25,000 negatives, 6,000 vintage prints, field notes, and personal memorabilia. Curators and researchers from around the world visit the Museum to access the Lange collection.

 

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Richmond - School Children - Every Hand Up Signifies A Child Not Born in California
c.1942
1934
1931
1935
c.1944
ca. 1943

Handwritten on negative envelope: "El Cerrito trailer camp. "Do Not Disturb - Night Worker Sleeping"

ca. 1942
c.1942
August, 1943
1942/1943
ca. 1943

Handwritten on negative envelope: "On the way to work (swing shift) Just across the street from Gate of Yard 2."

ca. 1942
Street Scenes - Metropolitan Oakland|Rooms for Rent - Metropolitan Oakland
circa 1942
June 1935
June 1935
1953
1951
Texas Panhandle
1938

see 67.137.38258.1 -.2 (negatives taken apparently the same day)

Notes in Catalog Sheet Volume 4 read:
Publication
AMEX - '69 -pg 80
AMEX - '39 -pg 100...

Last West | Kern Co., Calif - Lettuce Strike
1938

Notes in Catalog Sheet Volume 4 read
Publication
AMEX-'39-pg139

-"sheriff's deputies confront agricultural workers on strike"

Texas Panhandle
1938

see 67.137.38258.1 -.2 (negatives taken apparently the same day)

Notes in Catalog Sheet Volume 4 read:
Publication
AMEX - '69 -pg 80
AMEX - '39 -pg 100...

04/06/42
CA. 1943
1933

Lange Problem #4. This is evidently Lange's personal copy negative. The original negative is 67.137.7511.

Untitled, (Oakland, Calif. Headlines of newspapers)
Feb-42

Oakes Observatory

Oakland, Calif. Headlines of newspapers in stand at 14th and Broadway presaged, on February 27, 1942, the evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from military...

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