Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California

Dorothea Lange was a prolific member of the pioneering team of photographers hired by the Historical Section of the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression. She concentrated largely on the unemployed and displaced farmworkers of the American West and Southwest, revealing their plight and circumstances with great compassion, humanity, and considerable insight. This arresting image has appeared in countless textbooks and histories of that difficult period in American history.