How fabulous! Thank you for sharing. Have you read Mary Coin by Marisa Silver? It was inspired by Migrant Mother, and I really enjoyed it. Thanks again
Nov 24, 2023·edited Nov 24, 2023Liked by Laura Spence-Ash
Thank you for this post on Dorothea Lange. I was at the Tate Modern recently, to see the Capturing the Moment photography/painting exhibition, on how images from photographs influenced paintings. Migrant Mother, Nipimo, California had this description on a panel: "Like most photographs produced for the RA, the title of this work does not give the name of its principal sitter, but instead makes reference to a general category or type – ‘migrant mother’. The historian James C. Curtis has argued that this was a practice employed by the RA to ensure that the figures depicted would be seen as representative of the ‘common men and women whose plight the Roosevelt administration was working to improve’ (Curtis 1986, p.4).
In 1978 a reporter named Emmett Corrigan identified the woman in this photograph as Florence Owens Thompson. In the same year, in an interview with Corrigan for a local newspaper called The Modesto Bee, Thompson stated: ‘I wish she hadn’t taken my picture … I can’t get a penny out of it. [Lange] didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures. She said she’d send me a copy. She never did’ (quoted in Don Nardo, Migrant Mother: How a Photograph Defined the Great Depression, Oakland 2011, p.46). The historian of photography Sally Stein has argued that the identification of the woman in the photograph as Thompson changed its significance as a social and historical document: prior to this it had been assumed that the subject was an American of European descent, whereas she was actually a Native American, and according to Stein the plight of this group during the Depression is often excluded from historical accounts of this period (Stein in International Centre of Photography 2004, pp.352–3)." For the full summary and image, here's the link - https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lange-migrant-mother-nipomo-california-p13115
I have friends who are working at re-titling and re-storying Indigenous collections made by white settlers in the Canadian Rockies in Canada. This reconnection to communities by museums and others matters to First Nations and marginalized people, whose stories are often edited out, and to everyone whose life might be benefited by learning other ways of creating story, including decolonized versions.
How fabulous! Thank you for sharing. Have you read Mary Coin by Marisa Silver? It was inspired by Migrant Mother, and I really enjoyed it. Thanks again
Thank you for this post on Dorothea Lange. I was at the Tate Modern recently, to see the Capturing the Moment photography/painting exhibition, on how images from photographs influenced paintings. Migrant Mother, Nipimo, California had this description on a panel: "Like most photographs produced for the RA, the title of this work does not give the name of its principal sitter, but instead makes reference to a general category or type – ‘migrant mother’. The historian James C. Curtis has argued that this was a practice employed by the RA to ensure that the figures depicted would be seen as representative of the ‘common men and women whose plight the Roosevelt administration was working to improve’ (Curtis 1986, p.4).
In 1978 a reporter named Emmett Corrigan identified the woman in this photograph as Florence Owens Thompson. In the same year, in an interview with Corrigan for a local newspaper called The Modesto Bee, Thompson stated: ‘I wish she hadn’t taken my picture … I can’t get a penny out of it. [Lange] didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures. She said she’d send me a copy. She never did’ (quoted in Don Nardo, Migrant Mother: How a Photograph Defined the Great Depression, Oakland 2011, p.46). The historian of photography Sally Stein has argued that the identification of the woman in the photograph as Thompson changed its significance as a social and historical document: prior to this it had been assumed that the subject was an American of European descent, whereas she was actually a Native American, and according to Stein the plight of this group during the Depression is often excluded from historical accounts of this period (Stein in International Centre of Photography 2004, pp.352–3)." For the full summary and image, here's the link - https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lange-migrant-mother-nipomo-california-p13115
I have friends who are working at re-titling and re-storying Indigenous collections made by white settlers in the Canadian Rockies in Canada. This reconnection to communities by museums and others matters to First Nations and marginalized people, whose stories are often edited out, and to everyone whose life might be benefited by learning other ways of creating story, including decolonized versions.