| Florence Owens Thompson | |
|---|---|
Migrant Mother, taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936 |
|
| Born | Florence Leona Christie September 1, 1903 Cherokee Indian Territory, United States |
| Died | September 16, 1983 (aged 80) Scotts Valley, California, United States |
| Resting place | Lakewood Memorial Park |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Agricultural laborer |
| Known for | Dorothea Lange's photograph |
| Spouse | Cleo Owens (c.1898–c.1931) m. 1921 George B. Thompson (1902–1974) m.? |
| Children | 7 |
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."[1]
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In March 1936, after picking beets in the Imperial Valley, 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,[2][3] 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.[5] Within days, the pea-picker camp received 20,000 pounds of food from the federal government.[5] However, Thompson and her family had moved on by the time the food arrived[5] and were working near Watsonville, California.[2]
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.[2]
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.[6] 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."[2] 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.[7]
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".[8]
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."[7]
While the image was being prepared for exhibit in 1941,[9] the negative of the famous photo was retouched to remove Florence's thumb in the lower-right corner of the image.[10] 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 Commerce.[11] After the death of Hendrie and his wife, their daughter, Marian Tankersley, rediscovered the photos while emptying her parents' San Jose home.[11] In 1998, the retouched photo of Migrant Mother became a 32-cent U.S. Postal Service stamp in the 1930s Celebrate the Century series.[12] 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."[13]
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.[14] In November 2002, Dorothea Lange's personal print of Migrant Mother sold at Christie's New York for $141,500.[5] 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.[11]
Thompson was hospitalized and her family appealed for financial help in late August 1983.[15] 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.[16][17] 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.[7]
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."[2]
Lange took six photos that day, the last being the famous Migrant Mother. These are the other five photos: