Dorothea Lange

The National Archives contains roughly 1,400 photographs by influential documentary photographer and photojournalist Dorothea Lange (1895-1965). In 1940 she was hired by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics to produce photographs for a series of studies in California and Arizona that sought to understand why some agricultural communities succeed and others fail. What resulted is a record of pre–World War II rural life and social institutions in towns and counties throughout these states. During World War II, Lange was commissioned by the War Relocation Authority to document the daily life and treatment of Japanese Americans before and during their internment in relocation camps. She also photographed the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, California, for the Office of War Information.