Florence Owens Thompson

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Florence Owens Thompson with children, Nipomo, California (1936)

Florence Owens Thompson (born September 1, 1903 in Indian Territory , Oklahoma , United States , † September 16, 1983 in Scotts Valley , Santa Cruz County , California ), born Florence Leona Christie , was known worldwide for her photography Migrant Mother , which the photographer Dorothea Lange made of her and published on March 10, 1936 in the San Francisco News under the title "Ragged, Hungry, Broke, Harvest Workers Live in Squalor" on the subject of the Great Depression (Great Depression) in the States .

Life

Florence Leona Christie was the daughter of an Native American family from the Cherokee tribe . Her father, Jackson Christie, was imprisoned for a while and left her mother, Mary Jane, before Florence was even born. Her mother married Charles Akman of the Choctaw tribe in 1905 . The family lived on farming outside of Tahlequah , in the Cherokee Nation's Indian territory , where the majority of Cherokee Indians still live today. Florence grew up believing that Charles Akman was her real father.

On February 14, 1921, when she was 17, she married Cleo Leroy Owens, a 23-year-old farmer from Stone County, Mississippi . Around 1925/26 they went to Porterville , California with part of Cleo's family and three children . They found work in various sawmills in the area.

At Camp, Nipomo , California (1936)

After the stock market crash on Wall Street on October 24, 1929, the economy collapsed. As a result, Cleo Owens became unemployed in 1931. Looking for work, the family moved to Oroville in northern California, where Cleo Owens suddenly died of a fever in 1933 at the age of only 32. Now with five children, pregnant again and on her own, Florence Owens went back to her parents in Oklahoma. After the birth of her third son, she moved back to California with her children, parents and other family members, this time to Merced Falls. In search of work in agriculture, the family roamed California for several years, living in camps and extremely poor housing. The money was often insufficient to support the family.

In 1935, Florence Owens met Jim Hill, a Los Angeles butcher , with whom she lived for a while, bringing the number of their children to ten. She later recalled that they had to sleep under bridges at times for lack of accommodation. Hill left her, and after the end of the Second World War she married Georg Thompson, the administrative director of a hospital. With him, the family finally came to a safe and normal life.

In 1983, when Florence Owens Thompson cancer diagnosed. While on cancer treatment, she suffered a stroke from which she did not recover. When she died at the age of 80, she left 10 children, 39 grandchildren and 74 great-grandchildren.

Migrant Mother

Florence Owens Thompson, known as "Migrant Mother" (1936); in the lower right corner Thompson's retouched thumb can still be seen in the shadows

Probably the best-known photo that was and is associated with the Great Depression in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s is "Migrant Mother", taken on March 9, 1936 by Dorothea Lange as a documentary photo. It shows 32-year-old Florence Owens with her three children Katherine (4), Ruby (5) and Norma (1) sitting in a tent-like dwelling. It is the last photo in a series of six photos taken by Dorothea Lange with the experience of a photographer who earned her living as a portrait photographer. Florence Owens' gaze, hand to face, and children leaning against their mother, looking away, achieve the effect Lange wanted.

One day later, on March 10, 1936, the photo appeared together with the article Ragged, hungry, broke. Harvest workers live in misery in the San Francisco News . The media across the country took over the story with the photo. In no time at all, the picture of Florence Owens was known throughout the United States, as was the story of the unbearable living conditions of thousands of farm workers. The government sent first aid in the form of food a few days later, but Florence Owens no longer received it. She had already moved on in search of work and food.

For an exhibition in 1941, Thompson's left thumb was retouched on the negative of the photo in the lower right corner. The outline of the thumb can still be seen in the shadows. In October 2005, an old version of the photo, along with other unretouched works by Lange, was auctioned for $ 296,000.

Dorothea Lange became world famous with the photo of the "Migrant Mother". The photo was shown in exhibitions, hung in galleries, added to socially critical articles in print media and declared an object of art. In 1998 the auction of a contemporary print raised nearly a quarter of a million US dollars . Today the 35 by 27 centimeter print hangs in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu (California) .

Until her death in 1965, Dorothea Lange did not know who she had actually photographed. The person himself, with his own story, was evidently of no interest to her. She was only interested in giving an emotional face to the misery of that time. She was probably not aware that she was creating an aesthetic work of art. Nonetheless, the photo brought her recognition, fame and financial advantage, something Florence Owens Thompson later complained about. It wasn't until the end of the 1970s that she went public through the local daily Modesto Bee and told her story. Since then the photo has had a second name: Florence Owens Thompson.

History of origin

At Camp with Baby (1936)

The genesis of Dorothea Lange's most famous photo, “Migrant Mother”, is told in different ways.

Dorothea Lange 1960:

“I saw and approached a hungry and hopeless mother, as if attracted by a magnet. I don't remember explaining my presence or my camera to her, but I remember she didn't ask me any questions. I took five exposures, closer and closer from the same direction. I didn't ask her name or her story. She explained to me that her age was 32 years. She said they lived on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and on birds that the children killed. She had just sold her car's tires to buy food. She sat there, leaning against the tent, with her children crouching around her, and she seemed to know that my photos could help her, so she helped me. There was a kind of equality in the matter. "

At the camp with children (1936)

Florence Owens Thomson's grandson Roger Spraque:

“Then a shiny new car (it was only two years old) drove into the entrance, stopped about twenty yards from Florence, and a well-dressed woman came out with a big camera. She started photographing Florence. The woman came closer with each picture. Florence thought to herself, 'Don't pay her any attention. The woman finds me picturesque and wants to take a picture of me. ' The woman took the last picture less than four feet away and then said to Florence: 'Hello, I'm Dorothea Lange, I work for the Farm Security Administration and document the plight of the migrant workers. The photos will never be published, I promise. ' Florence said, 'Okay if you think it will help'. The woman turned around, went away, got into her car and was gone. "

Trivia

The conciseness of the “migrant mother” and the clear message of the picture offer opportunities for its unspecific use. The photo is not only detached from its historical context and used to illustrate completely different situations, but is now also used as an eye-catcher to communicate various dissatisfaction. For example, at the turn of the year 2016/2017, the Leipziger Volkszeitung added a specially colored excerpt from the 80-year-old black and white photo to its “Opinion Barometer” without citing the source. With brunette hair and a lighter complexion, the face of Florence Owens Thompson refers to a current list of allegedly widespread concerns in Germany.

literature

  • Robert Hariman, John Louis Lucaites: No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2007, ISBN 978-0-226-31606-2 .

Web links

Commons : Florence Owens Thompson  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hanna Soltys: Dorothea Lange's “Migrant Mother” Photographs in the Farm Security Administration Collection: Introduction. In: Research Guides at Library of Congress. February 19, 2019, accessed on May 26, 2020 .
  2. ^ Geoffrey Dunn: Photographic license. In: New Times Magazine, San Luis Obispo. 2002, archived from the original on May 19, 2007 ; accessed on April 10, 2018 (English).
  3. ↑ Anita Kecke: LVZ opinion barometer - two thirds say there is too much grumbling in Germany. In: lvz.de . January 1, 2017, accessed May 26, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Owens Thompson, Florence
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Owens, Florence; Christie, Florence Leona (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American migrant worker during the Great Depression in 1936 in the photo “Migrant Mother” by Dorothea Lange
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Indian Territory , Oklahoma
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 1983
Place of death Scotts Valley , Santa Cruz County , California