Photo of the Week #403

May 25, 2026
Sometimes a photo becomes a shorthand for a whole chapter in history. In the case of this iconic photograph, the image goes further still, and serves as a lodestar for the camera's ability to inspire empathy in the face of human suffering. Lange had found early success as a portrait photographer, and her gift for connecting with people made her highly effective in her role as a photographer for the New Deal's Resettlement Administration (later the Farm Security Administration).

Lange was tasked with documenting the poverty being endured by sharecroppers and migrant farm laborers amidst the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. This picture of a family of destitute farm laborers, languishing close to starvation near spoiled pea fields, demonstrates her ability to communicate the impacts in deeply human terms. Not long after her photographs were published in California newspapers, government food aid was rushed to the stranded workers in response.