The Daily Book of Photography

DAY 10

SOCIAL & POLITICAL COMMENTARY

Families

ROLE OF MOTHER

Migrant Mother captures the weariness, concern, and desperation of a woman caught in a personal plight that affects her family and their future. Captured by Dorothea Lange in 1936 as part of the Farm Security Administration’s documentation of migrant workers during the Depression Era, the photograph is a time-tested icon of family as the core unit of society.

Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California, 1936 (Migrant Mother); ...