Florence Owens Thompson
Encyclopedia
Florence Owens Thompson (September 1, 1903 – September 16, 1983), born Florence Leona Christie, was the subject of Dorothea Lange
's photo Migrant Mother (1936), an iconic
image of the Great Depression
. The Library of Congress
entitled the Migrant Mother image, "Destitute pea pickers
in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California."
, Thompson and her family were traveling on US Highway 101 towards Watsonville
in hopes of finding more work. On the road, the car timing chain snapped and they coasted to a stop just inside a pea-picker's
camp on Nipomo Mesa
. While Jim Hill, her husband, and two of Thompson's sons took the radiator, which had also been damaged, to town for repair, Thompson and some of the children set up a temporary camp. As Thompson waited, Dorothea Lange
, working for the Resettlement Administration, drove up and started taking photos of Florence and her family. Over 10 minutes she took 6 images.
Lange's field notes of the images read:
Lange later wrote of the meeting:
However, Thompson claimed that Lange never asked her any questions and got many of the details incorrect. Troy Owens recounted:
Thompson also claimed that Lange promised the photos would never be published, but Lange sent them to the San Francisco News
as well as to the Resettlement Administration
in Washington, D.C. The News ran the pictures almost immediately, with an assertion that 2,500 to 3,500 migrant workers were starving in Nipomo, California. Within days, the pea-picker camp received 20,000 pounds of food from the federal government. However, Thompson and her family had moved on by the time the food arrived and were working near Watsonville, California.
While Thompson's identity was not known for over forty years after the photos were taken, the images became famous. The sixth image especially, which later became known as Migrant Mother, "has achieved near mythical status, symbolizing, if not defining, an entire era in [United States] history." Roy Stryker
called Migrant Mother the "ultimate" photo of the Depression Era. "[Lange] never surpassed it. To me, it was the picture … The others were marvelous, but that was special ... . She is immortal." As a whole, the photographs taken for the Resettlement Administration "have been widely heralded as the epitome of documentary photography." Edward Steichen
described them as "the most remarkable human documents ever rendered in pictures." Later, however, the photographer was criticized for taking inaccurate notes.
It was only in the late 1970s that Thompson's identity was discovered. In 1978, acting on a tip, Modesto Bee reporter Emmett Corrigan located Thompson at her mobile home in Space 24 of the Modesto
Mobile Village and recognized her from the 40-year-old photograph. A letter Thompson wrote was published in The Modesto Bee and the Associated Press
sent a story around entitled "Woman Fighting Mad Over Famous Depression Photo." Florence was quoted as saying "I wish she [Lange] hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. She didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did." Thompson's daughter Katherine (to the left of the frame) said in a December 2008 interview that the photo's fame made the family feel shame at their poverty.
Lange was funded by the federal government when she took the picture, so the image was in the public domain and Lange never directly received any royalties. However, the picture did ultimately make Lange a celebrity and earned her "respect from her colleagues".
In an interview with CNN, Thompson's daughter, Katherine McIntosh, recalled how her mother was a "very strong lady", and "the backbone of our family". She said that "We never had a lot, but she always made sure we had something. She didn't eat sometimes, but she made sure us children ate. That's one thing she did do."
. After the death of Hendrie and his wife, their daughter, Marian Tankersley, rediscovered the photos while emptying her parents' San Jose home. In 1998, the retouched photo of Migrant Mother became a 32-cent U.S. Postal Service stamp in the 1930s Celebrate the Century series. The stamp printing was unusual since daughters Katherine McIntosh (on the left in the stamp) and Norma Rydlewski (in Thompson's arms in the stamp) were alive at the time of the printing and "It is very uncommon for the Postal Service to print stamps of individuals who have not been dead for at least 10 years."
In the same month the U.S. stamp was issued, a print of the photograph with Lange's handwritten notes and signature sold in 1998 for $244,500 at Sotheby's New York
. In November 2002, Dorothea Lange's personal print of Migrant Mother sold at Christie's New York
for $141,500. In October 2005, an anonymous buyer paid $296,000 at Sotheby's New York
for the rediscovered 32 vintage, untouched Lange photos—nearly six times the pre-bid estimate.
Thompson was hospitalized and her family appealed for financial help in late August 1983. By September, the family had collected $25,000 in donations to pay for her medical care. Florence died of "cancer and heart problems" at Scotts Valley, California
on September 16, 1983. She was buried next to her husband George, in Lakewood Memorial Park, in Hughson, California
, and her gravestone reads: "FLORENCE LEONA THOMPSON Migrant Mother – A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood."
Daughter Katherine McIntosh told CNN
that the photo's fame had made the family feel both ashamed and determined never to be as poor again.
Son Troy Owens said that more than 2000 letters received along with donations for his mother's medical fund led to a re-appraisal of the photo: "For Mama and us, the photo had always been a bit of curse. After all those letters came in, I think it gave us a sense of pride."
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration...
's photo Migrant Mother (1936), an iconic
Cultural icon
A cultural icon can be a symbol, logo, picture, name, face, person, building or other image that is readily recognized and generally represents an object or concept with great cultural significance to a wide cultural group...
image of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. The Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
entitled the Migrant Mother image, "Destitute pea pickers
Pea-pickers
A pea-picker is a derogatory reference to poor, migrant workers during the Great Depression. These people were unskilled, poorly educated workers, suitable only for menial tasks, such as harvesting crops and, as such, received poor wages for working long hours under dreadful conditions...
in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California."
Iconic photo
In March 1936, after picking beets in the Imperial ValleyImperial Valley
The Imperial Valley is an agricultural area of Southern California's Imperial County. It is located in southeastern Southern California, centered around the city of El Centro. Locally, the terms "Imperial Valley" and "Imperial County" are used synonymously. The Valley is bordered between the...
, Thompson and her family were traveling on US Highway 101 towards Watsonville
Watsonville, California
Watsonville is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. The population was 51,199 according to the 2010 census.Located on the central coast of California, the economy centers predominantly around the farming industry. It is known for growing strawberries, apples, lettuce and a host...
in hopes of finding more work. On the road, the car timing chain snapped and they coasted to a stop just inside a pea-picker's
Pea-pickers
A pea-picker is a derogatory reference to poor, migrant workers during the Great Depression. These people were unskilled, poorly educated workers, suitable only for menial tasks, such as harvesting crops and, as such, received poor wages for working long hours under dreadful conditions...
camp on Nipomo Mesa
Nipomo, California
Nipomo is a census-designated place in San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. The population was 12,626 at the 2000 census, and grew to 16,714 for the 2010 census.-Geography:Nipomo is located at ....
. While Jim Hill, her husband, and two of Thompson's sons took the radiator, which had also been damaged, to town for repair, Thompson and some of the children set up a temporary camp. As Thompson waited, Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration...
, working for the Resettlement Administration, drove up and started taking photos of Florence and her family. Over 10 minutes she took 6 images.
Lange's field notes of the images read:
- "Seven hungry children. Father is native Californian. Destitute in pea pickers’ camp … because of failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tires to buy food."
Lange later wrote of the meeting:
- "I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was 32. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food."
However, Thompson claimed that Lange never asked her any questions and got many of the details incorrect. Troy Owens recounted:
- "There's no way we sold our tires, because we didn't have any to sell. The only ones we had were on the HudsonHudson Motor Car CompanyThe Hudson Motor Car Company made Hudson and other brand automobiles in Detroit, Michigan, from 1909 to 1954. In 1954, Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation to form American Motors. The Hudson name was continued through the 1957 model year, after which it was dropped.- Company strategy...
and we drove off in them. I don't believe Dorothea Lange was lying, I just think she had one story mixed up with another. Or she was borrowing to fill in what she didn't have."
Thompson also claimed that Lange promised the photos would never be published, but Lange sent them to the San Francisco News
San Francisco Call
The San Francisco Call was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called The San Francisco Call & Post, the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, San Francisco News-Call Bulletin, and the News-Call Bulletin...
as well as to the Resettlement Administration
Resettlement Administration
The Resettlement Administration was a U.S. federal agency that, between April 1935 and December 1936, relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government....
in Washington, D.C. The News ran the pictures almost immediately, with an assertion that 2,500 to 3,500 migrant workers were starving in Nipomo, California. Within days, the pea-picker camp received 20,000 pounds of food from the federal government. However, Thompson and her family had moved on by the time the food arrived and were working near Watsonville, California.
While Thompson's identity was not known for over forty years after the photos were taken, the images became famous. The sixth image especially, which later became known as Migrant Mother, "has achieved near mythical status, symbolizing, if not defining, an entire era in [United States] history." Roy Stryker
Roy Stryker
Roy Emerson Stryker was an American economist, government official, and photographer. He is most famous for heading the Information Division of the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression and launching the documentary photography movement of the FSA.After serving in the infantry...
called Migrant Mother the "ultimate" photo of the Depression Era. "[Lange] never surpassed it. To me, it was the picture … The others were marvelous, but that was special ... . She is immortal." As a whole, the photographs taken for the Resettlement Administration "have been widely heralded as the epitome of documentary photography." Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
described them as "the most remarkable human documents ever rendered in pictures." Later, however, the photographer was criticized for taking inaccurate notes.
It was only in the late 1970s that Thompson's identity was discovered. In 1978, acting on a tip, Modesto Bee reporter Emmett Corrigan located Thompson at her mobile home in Space 24 of the Modesto
Modesto, California
Modesto is a city in, and is the county seat of, Stanislaus County, California. With a population of approximately 201,165 at the 2010 census, Modesto ranks as the 18th largest city in the state of California....
Mobile Village and recognized her from the 40-year-old photograph. A letter Thompson wrote was published in The Modesto Bee and the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
sent a story around entitled "Woman Fighting Mad Over Famous Depression Photo." Florence was quoted as saying "I wish she [Lange] hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. She didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did." Thompson's daughter Katherine (to the left of the frame) said in a December 2008 interview that the photo's fame made the family feel shame at their poverty.
Lange was funded by the federal government when she took the picture, so the image was in the public domain and Lange never directly received any royalties. However, the picture did ultimately make Lange a celebrity and earned her "respect from her colleagues".
In an interview with CNN, Thompson's daughter, Katherine McIntosh, recalled how her mother was a "very strong lady", and "the backbone of our family". She said that "We never had a lot, but she always made sure we had something. She didn't eat sometimes, but she made sure us children ate. That's one thing she did do."
Rediscovering Migrant Mother
While the image was being prepared for exhibit in 1941, the negative of the famous photo was retouched to remove Florence's thumb in the lower-right corner of the image. In the late 1960s, Bill Hendrie found the original Migrant Mother photograph and 31 other vintage, untouched photos by Dorothea Lange in a dumpster at the San Jose Chamber of CommerceSan Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
. After the death of Hendrie and his wife, their daughter, Marian Tankersley, rediscovered the photos while emptying her parents' San Jose home. In 1998, the retouched photo of Migrant Mother became a 32-cent U.S. Postal Service stamp in the 1930s Celebrate the Century series. The stamp printing was unusual since daughters Katherine McIntosh (on the left in the stamp) and Norma Rydlewski (in Thompson's arms in the stamp) were alive at the time of the printing and "It is very uncommon for the Postal Service to print stamps of individuals who have not been dead for at least 10 years."
In the same month the U.S. stamp was issued, a print of the photograph with Lange's handwritten notes and signature sold in 1998 for $244,500 at Sotheby's New York
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
. In November 2002, Dorothea Lange's personal print of Migrant Mother sold at Christie's New York
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
for $141,500. In October 2005, an anonymous buyer paid $296,000 at Sotheby's New York
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
for the rediscovered 32 vintage, untouched Lange photos—nearly six times the pre-bid estimate.
Death and aftermath
Scotts Valley, California
Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles south of downtown San Jose and six miles north of Monterey Bay, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 11,580...
on September 16, 1983. She was buried next to her husband George, in Lakewood Memorial Park, in Hughson, California
Hughson, California
Hughson is a city in Stanislaus County, California, United States. It is part of the Modesto Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 6,640 at the 2010 census, up from 3,980 at the 2000 census.-History of farming:...
, and her gravestone reads: "FLORENCE LEONA THOMPSON Migrant Mother – A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood."
Daughter Katherine McIntosh told CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
that the photo's fame had made the family feel both ashamed and determined never to be as poor again.
Son Troy Owens said that more than 2000 letters received along with donations for his mother's medical fund led to a re-appraisal of the photo: "For Mama and us, the photo had always been a bit of curse. After all those letters came in, I think it gave us a sense of pride."
The other five photographs
Lange took six photos that day, the last being the famous Migrant Mother. These are the other five photos:- Persons in picture (left to right) are: Viola (Pete) in rocker, age 14, standing inside tent; Ruby, age 5; Katherine, age 4, seated on box; Florence, age 32, and infant Norma, age 1 year, being held by Florence.
- Ruby has moved inside the tent, and away from Lange, in hopes her photo can not be taken. Katherine stands next to her mother. Florence is talking to Ruby, who is hiding behind her mother, as Lange took the picture.
- Florence is nursing Norma. Katherine has moved back from her mother as Lange approached to take this shot. Ruby is still hiding behind her mother.
- Left to right are Florence, Ruby and baby Norma.
- Florence stopped nursing Norma and Ruby has come out from behind her. This photograph was the one used by the newspapers the following day to report the story of the starving migrants.
External links
- Audio of Florence Owens Thompson telling her story.
- The story told by her grandson, Roger Sprague Sr.
- The pictures at the LOC, including the original without the retouch.
- "Migrant Mother" as an iconic image – excerpt from a book
- Discussion of "Migrant Mother" and the ethical questions raised
- Article on the photo shoot and reinterpretation of an image
- 08/08/09 Prairie Home Companion in Oklahoma, Monica Taylor singing her song "Young Mother" about the migrant mother in this photo (Segment 2, 00:38:24)