Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), considered to be one of America’s most influential photojournalists and documentary photographers, is best known for her works that humanized the consequences of the Great Depression and the Japanese-American internment of World War II. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, as Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn, Dorothea assumed her mother’s maiden name (Lange) after her father abandoned the family when she was 12 years old. Lange’s upbringing was never easy. At the age of 7 Lange contracted polio which left her with a permanent limp. Lange faced significant struggles growing up but eventually attended Columbia University and apprenticed in photography studios throughout New York until she moved to San Francisco in 1918. Over the next 10 years. Until the onset of the Great Depression, Lange worked primarily as a portrait studio photographer.
With the Great Depression Lange began to document what was going on in the streets focusing on the many homeless and unemployed people struggling to survive. In 1935 she was hired by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) where she devoted the majority of her time to photographing the plight of displaced families and migrant workers bringing their causes to the public’s attention. Lange’s work for the FSA brought the struggles of America’s forgotten to each American’s doorstep. Her images are considered icons for that era. One of Lange’s best-known works is called Migrant Mother.
In 1941, Lange was given a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work in photography. With this grant, she began to document the Japanese American internment camps that began to pop up in California after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 
Lange’s haunting images presented the atrocities that were occurring in America throughout World War II. Many of her images were so controversial that the Army impounded them.
In 1945, Ansel Adams offered Lange a position in the first fine art photography department at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA), now renamed the San Francisco Art Institute, and in 1952, Lange became one of the co-founders of the influential photography magazine Aperture, which remains one of today’s most influential photo magazines. She continued to work, teach, and produce until her death in 1965. Lange died of esophageal cancer at the age of 70.
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