ABSTRACT
As a child in the twentieth century’s first decade, Dorothea Lange learned to make herself invisible. As an adult, she made visible the nation’s darkest corners of racism, extreme poverty, and political powerlessness. Lange flouted proscriptions for women, taking advantage of the twentieth century’s radically shifting gender roles. As a teen, she enjoyed New York City diversions with men and women friends, breaking prohibitions against men and women’s joint socializing. Lange rarely discussed traditional electoral politics. However, her photos of those ravaged by the Depression are enmeshed in a deeply political project, one still debated today, of the nature of governmental responsibility and care toward citizens’ basic needs. Lange’s photographs can be breathtaking, but she perceived her camera as “a tool of research,” part of a larger investigative process. From her second husband, agricultural economist Paul Taylor, she learned about social science research and the power of the written word, which became critical to her inquiry.
