Dorothea Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. At age seven she contracted polio and as a result walked with a limp. By the time she graduated from high school, she knew she wanted to be a photographer. She began working as a photographic assistant while attending classes at the New York Training School for Teachers. In 1918 Lange left New York and ended up in San Francisco, where she opened a photography studio. She became one of the best-known portrait photographers in the city. In the 1930s, as the Great Depression spread across the United States, Lange began to take photographs documenting its impact on individuals. She was hired by the Resettlement Administration, later called the Farm Security Administration, to document the living conditions of migrant workers in California. Her photograph Migrant Mother became a symbol of the depression. With her husband Paul Taylor, she published An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion (1939). She later worked for the government photographing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. In the 1950s Lange completed several assignments for Life and Look magazines. She was preparing a retrospective of her work when she died. The exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York opened after her death.
