Migrant Mother, 1936
You’re probably familiar with this photo by photographer Dorothea Lange, who captured the United States during the Great Depression and managed to freeze this period in history with her photographs. Lange was traveling around the country in an attempt to document the suffering of the period.
She met Florence Owens Thompson, a mother of ten children, in California. Lange saw the suffering and concern in Thomson’s eyes and asked to take her picture. Although she promised her the photos would not be published, Migrant Mother became one of the most iconic images in American history.