She has been called, "an extraordinary phenomenon in photography." Dorothea was born in Hoboken, New York in the year 1895. When she graduated form high school she was determined to become a photographer. Though she had this dream, she attended the New York Training School for Teachers to please her mother. While going to the training school she would work for professional photographers in the afternoons. This experience allowed her to learn new techniques and gain skills from trained people. She also took a photography course at Columbia University.
Lange eventually moved to San Francisco and worked briefly for a photographer in the city. Afterwards she opened her own studio which drew prosperous families wanting their portraits taken. She began visiting Indian Reservations and photographing the members of the tribes. This would become her first experiments with documentary photography.
The Depression struck the U.S. during this time. Dorothea's portrait business decreased...money was in short supply. On the street people were suffering, standing in lines for food, and fighting for survival. Dorothea's interest in the people drew her to the street to take photos. In 1932 she took several pictures of people standing in a bread line outside her studio. A photo which she entitled, "White Angel Bread Line," showed an unshaven and broken man. It would later be called, "one of the greatest images of the Depression," and her first outstanding documentary.
While at an exhibit of her work in Oakland, she met her future husband Paul Taylor. He was a writer that was very interested in the labor problems in California They went out into the field together and documented the conditions of the migrant workers for the California Emergency Relief Administration. Their reports helped get federal funds for the migrants that were used to build adequate camps for them to live in. The government saw the power of Dorothea's photos and offered her a job working for the U.S. Resettlement Administration covering the West.
She went on to take several photos that captured America on film. One of her most famous photos, "Migrant Mother," was a photo of a raggedy clothed woman with her three children. This photo was exhibited throughout the world. Many of her pictures of migrants went on to be published in An American Exodus, a book she wrote with Taylor.
She continued to photograph the American scene until she died in 1965.
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