Video: Migrant Mother: How One Accidentally Taken Photo Became a Symbol of the Era
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The photo "Migrant Mother", taken during the Great Depression, is called a cult photo, since it reflected the plight of the people of that era. The whole world learned about the woman in the picture. Thanks to her, several thousand people were saved, but he did not bring any relief to the mother of many children.
In 1936, journalist Dorothea Lange, carrying out the assignment of the Migration Administration, ended up in the Californian town of Nipomo, where the settlers were harvesting peas. On the roadside, she saw a woman with children. Dorothea Lange had a camera with her and took some pictures of the family. When she showed the film, she was shocked by the hopeless melancholy and doom that shone through the eyes of the displaced person.
Florence Owens Thompson became the heroine of the famous photograph. She was born to the Cherokee tribe in Oklahoma. At the age of 17, Florence got married. By the 31st year, when the woman was already expecting her sixth child, her husband died of tuberculosis. To feed herself and her children, Florence worked several jobs, devoting no more than a couple of hours to sleep.
A few years later, a mother with many children met a certain Jim Hill and gave birth to three more children from him. In March 1936, the entire family was moving along Highway 101, hoping to find work in the lime plantations. Their car broke down near the town of Nipomo, in the vicinity of which pea pickers were working. 3,500 people were stranded by a lean year.
While Jim Hill and his sons went into town to fix a broken piece, Florence and the children pitched a tent. It was at that moment that Dorothea Lange saw them. One of the pictures taken was published by Dorothea in the San Francisco News, describing the plight of starving pea pickers. “Look into her eyes,” was the caption to the photograph. The picture had such an effect that in a couple of days help arrived in Nipomo with 9 tons of food. By that time, the Florence family was already far away.
Little is known about the next 40 years of the mother of 10 children. After World War II, she married the administrator of the hospital, George Thompson, and was no longer afraid to be left without a piece of bread.
In 1978, one of the journalists tracked down the Thompson family. At the same time, the famous photograph received its current name: "Migrant Mother". As it turned out, all these years Florence harbored a grudge against the newspapermen and the government, who made her image a nameless, suffering image of the era, and she was not given a dime for this.
The only time the Thompson family made themselves public was 1983. Florence Owens Thompson suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with cancer. The children were no longer able to pay for expensive treatment and turned to the public for help. In a short time, 35 thousand dollars were collected for Florence's treatment and 2000 letters were received. But by that time the woman had already passed away. Her headstone is engraved with the inscription: “Florence Leona Thompson. The Displaced Mother: The Legend of the Power of the American Spirit of Motherhood.
In addition to "Migrant Mother" is also called several pictures that have become a reflection of entire eras.
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