Dorothea Lange

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Dorothea Lange Page 64

by Linda Gordon


  39. KQED, 15. Several of the most moving letters were from Paul Strand. He and Lange had met in New York, probably through the Photo League, but had rarely been together, yet they felt as comrades in spirit. Paul Strand to DL, three letters 1964 and 1965, JDC; IC to Minor White, September 27, 1964, IC Papers.

  40. My information about Ross Taylor comes from a musical biography emailed to me by his son, Paul Wegman Taylor, and interviews with Ross’s wife, Onnie, and his daughter Dyanna.

  41. There was a family argument about this: Ross’s mother, Katharine, now a Quaker, wanted him to be a CO, but Paul would not hear of that option.

  42. DL to Margot Fanger, March 15, 1964, Fanger family papers. Rondal Partridge recalls that he could hear Ross’s mania in the sound of his horn. In January 1964, he was hospitalized, treated, and then released after a few weeks; he returned to his home and to the orchestra, saying that he now knew he had to be a workhorse not a racehorse.

  43. The orchestra played a concert in his memory in February 1965, featuring Ross’s own arrangements for the French horn repertoire. The concert proceeds were used to start a scholarship fund in Ross’s name at San Francisco State, where he taught. His arrangements are still published and played, his students proudly list him as one of their prestigious instructors, and a mouthpiece that he favored on his horn is now called by his name. San Francisco Chronicle, February 21, 1965, and Palo Alto Times, February 9, 1965.

  44. Dorothea, despite her own illness, reached out to Onnie with great sensitivity; author’s interview with Onnie Taylor, April 14, 2004.

  45. “Doctors are trying to find a way by putting the biggest type of whoozie down. . . .” KQED, 22.

  46. KQED 17.

  47. KQED 4.

  48. KQED 18.

  49. KQED 4.

  50. “I can have all the dope I want, promised me, I don’t have to worry about that. But the food that I want to eat . . .” KQED 10.

  51. Richard Conrat to MM, December 10, 1976.

  52. DL to Margot Fanger, October 19, 1957.

  53. “If Clark had only stepped in there, quick, and told the police to leave, they should never have been allowed there. . . .” When Phil Greene compared it to Little Rock, she responded, “It’s cumulative memory . . . becoming a symbol.” KQED 20.

  54. PST to various family members, December 13, 1964, OM.

  55. DL to Margot Fanger, January 10, 1965.

  56. KQED 22.

  57. She wrote to her cousin Minette: “Suddenly I remembered what you told me years ago, ‘let God do it, why don’t you let God do it?’ Well, that IS what I forgot. . . .” DL to Minette (Minelda Jiras), undated letter, from Jiras.

  58. KQED 13.

  59. DL to Margot Fanger, September 29, 1959.

  60. DL to Margot Fanger, February 10, 1960, and March 15, 1964.

  61. Author’s interview with John Dixon, February 2003.

  62. Handwritten note, undated, JDC.

  63. HM interview with Margot Fanger, January 24, 1999; DL correspondence with Margot Fanger, 1959, 1962; KQED 18.

  64. KQED 8.

  65. DL to Mary ?, undated letter, JDC; she made a similar request to Arthur (Tex) Goldschmidt, undated letter, JDC.

  66. Paul had kept a record of events in his typical tiny notebook. Underneath his notation about her time of death, he wrote, “That’s the measure of your greatness. I’m not going to try to say it again—you gave me my life.” PST diary, JDC; PST notes, OM; PST to Martin Lange, October 13, 1965, OM.

  25. Photographer of Democracy

  1. John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Minton, Balch & Co., 1934), 325.

  2. KQED 20.

  3. Sally Stein, “ ‘Good Fences Make Good Neighbors’: American Resistance to Photomontage Between the Wars,” in Montage and Modern Life 1919–1942, ed. Matthew Teitelbaum (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 129–89.

  4. KQED 6.

  5. KQED 15.

  6. KQED 26.

  7. KQED 15.

  8. Becky was already eighteen by the time of Dorothea’s death and remembers her mother’s intensity about this decision. Private communication to author.

  9. Clippings in the author’s possession.

  10. Tributes in box 68, folders 2 and 5, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Papers, GRI.

  11. See http://www.eurekareporter.com/article/080531-local-man-does-more-than-take-pictures.

  12. Lindsay Warner, “Art for America,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, June 4, 2008.

  13. This is true even in Canada; see Zosia Bielski, “Capturing Pride,” National Post, June 3, 2008.

  14. At the time of this writing, Google identifies 130,000 images of it on the Web; there are probably as many or more not identified by this title.

  15. See http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/image/67828474.

  16. Volume 161, no. 211 (2007).

  17. See http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/02/13-photographs-that-changed-the-world/.

  18. This center arose in North Carolina in part as a continuation of the work done there by Howard Odum, Arthur Raper, Margaret Hagood, and Lange.

  PHOTOGRAPH SOURCES

  Frontispiece: LC-USF34-009058-C

  page xii: LoC 009058-C

  Scene 1: LNG57016

  1.1: Childhood: Helen Dixon

  1.2: Helen Dixon

  3.1: LNG

  3.2: LNG

  3.3: LNG

  3.4: LNG

  4.1: Cal Hist Society

  4.2: Becky Jenkins

  4.3: CCP Tucson

  5.1: Medicine Man Gallery

  5.2: LNG

  5.3: LNG

  5.4: LNG

  5.5: LNG

  5.6: LNG

  5.7: Malcolm Collier

  Scene 2: LNG 33001.1

  6.1: LNG7548

  8.1: LNG

  9.1: Helen Dixon

  9.2: Bancroft

  9.3: Bancroft

  9.4: LoC 016292-E

  9.5: LoC 016287-E

  9.6: LoC 016613-C

  9.7: LoC 017223-E

  Scene 3: Rondal Partridge

  12.1: LoC 019156-C

  12.2: LoC 000826-D

  12.3: LoC 016206-E

  12.4: LoC 009796-E

  12.5: LoC 001735-ZE

  12.6: LoC 016070-C

  12.7: LoC 009972-C

  14.1: LoC 002812-E

  14.2: LoC 016272-C

  14.3: LoC 009666-E

  14.4: LoC 009665-E

  14.5: LoC 018281-C

  14.6: LoC 018170-C

  15.1: LoC 018199-E

  15.2: LoC 020258-E

  15.3: LoC 019849-E

  15.4: UNC P3167B/39

  15.5: UNC P-3966/2459

  15.6: LoC 019786-E

  16.1: An American Exodus cover

  16.2: An American Exodus

  Scene 4: NARA, 210-G-2A95

  18.1: BAE 522528

  18.2: BAE 522026

  19.1: NARA, 210-G-1A72

  19.2: NARA, 210-G-2C579

  20.1: LNG 42043.8

  20.2: LNG 42072.6

  20.3: LNG 42084.1

  20.4: LNG 42059.4

  20.5: LNG 42084.4

  Scene 5: Helen Dixon

  22.1: LNG 54272.4

  22.2: LNG 54279.6

  22.3: LNG 54282.5

  22.4: Pirkle Jones

  22.5: Pirkle Jones

  22.6: LNG

  22.7: LNG 57154.3

  22.8: LNG 57063.16

  22.9: Helen Dixon

  22.10: LNG 55024.6

  22.11: LNG 57013.22

  22.12: LNG 59242.10

  23.1: LNG

  23.2: LNG63114.8

  23.3: LNG58257.1

  23.4: LNG 58210.2

  23.5: LNG 60102.4a

  23.6: LNG 58218.17

  24.1: LNG 59242.10

  24.2: Rondal Partridge

  24.3: Rondal Partridge

  24.4: Shirley Burden, LNG

  24.5: Helen Dixon

  24.6: Helen Dixon

  24.7: Helen Dixon />
  Inserts

  1: Studio: LNG 5814

  2: LNG2068

  3: LNG 6053

  4: LNG

  5: LoC 016153-E

  6: Portraits: BAE 522199

  7: LoC 009866-C

  8: LNG 35035.1

  9: LoC 019300-E

  10: Loc 017363-C

  11: LoC 018675-D

  12: LNG 35057.1

  13: LoC 019499-E

  14: LNG

  15: LoC 019799-E

  16: LoC 020397-C

  17: LoC 019221-C

  18: LoC 016425-C

  19: LoC 009915-E

  20: LoC 019479-C

  21: LoC 020211-E

  22: LoC 009959-C

  23: LoC

  24: LoC 019996-E

  25: LoC 099599-C

  26: An American Exodus

  27: LoC 002533

  28: LNG 38229.1

  29: LNG 38166.5

  30: LoC 020250-E

  31: LoC 009841-C

  32: LoC 018216-E

  33 : NARA

  34: NARA

  35: LNG 45042.6

  36: LNG 42102.6

  37: LNG

  38: LNG 57150.1

  39: LNG 56001.7

  40: LNG 56002.19

  41: LNG 58186.10

  42: LNG 93146

  43: LNG

  44: LNG 63131.3

  45: LoC 009270-E

  46: LNG 58194.7

  47: Helen Dixon

  48: LoC 017111-C

  INDEX

  Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

  Abbott, Berenice, 351

  Abbott, Edith, 142–43, 145

  action photography, 350

  activism, photography of, 133–36

  activist photographs, 132

  Adams, Ansel, 46, 79, 92, 118, 120, 126, 203, 212, 285, 330–39, 349, 357, 358, 359, 373, 399, 405, 408, 412, 424

  Aperture magazine founded by, 350–51

  DL’s relationship with, 336–39, 367, 368, 370

  Fortune commission of, 331–37

  FSA photography project and, 289, 290, 293, 297, 338

  in Utah project, 367–70

  Addams, Jane, 143

  African Americans, 51, 117, 117, 126, 166, 199, 225, 242, 250, 253, 280, 281–82, 296–97, 316, 403, 404

  southern, 260, 261, 262, 262, 263, 264–65, 266, 268, 269, 270, 272, 275, 276, 328

  in World War II, 328, 329, 332, 333

  see also racism

  “Again the Covered Wagon” (Lange and Taylor), 166

  Agee, James, 281–82

  Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), 158, 194, 252, 275

  Agriculture Department, U.S., 150, 157–59, 167, 171, 194–95, 198, 199, 203, 217, 230, 250, 263, 265, 268–69, 275, 288, 355, 384, 386

  Ahlstrom, Florence “Fronsie,” 27–28, 38–41, 42, 43, 47, 72, 75, 381, 417

  Alexander, Will, 194, 196

  Alinder, Mary Street, 338

  American Exodus, An (Lange and Taylor), 278, 279–86, 283, 284, 351, 410

  photographs selected for, 284–85, 286

  quoted comments in, 280–81, 282

  story line of, 282–83

  antimigrant (anti-“Okie”) California police blockade, 256–57

  antimigrant nativism, 143, 149, 225–27, 256–58

  Aperture, 350–51

  Arizona, 39–40, 68, 83, 84–87, 113, 148, 180, 228, 253, 285, 296, 306, 307, 348–49

  Arkansas, 274–76

  Armory Show (1913), 29, 30

  art photography, 28–29, 37, 51, 53, 64, 76, 107–8, 119, 120, 202–4, 209, 281, 286, 349, 359, 412

  art photography (continued)

  DL’s work as, 349–50, 399, 401–2, 408, 410, 428

  Asian travels, 382–93, 398–400, 402, 405, 410, 421, 424, 425

  Aspen Institute photographers’ conference, 350–52, 353

  Associated Farmers (AF), 150–51, 233, 314, 355, 356

  Austin, Mary, 67, 68

  Baker, Ray Stannard, 83

  Baldwin, Anita, 84–87, 112, 138

  Baldwin, C. B., 194, 196

  Barthes, Roland, 361

  Beard, Mary, 285

  Bender, Albert, 53, 91–92, 95, 97, 337

  Benjamin, Walter, 60

  Berkeley, Calif., xiv, xv, 40, 122, 175–87, 237, 308–13, 379, 381, 401–22, 402, 404, 405, 409

  Bierce, Ambrose, 68, 69

  birth control, 195–96, 273, 294, 362, 403

  Bloch, Ernest, 63, 63, 130

  Blythe, Calif., 247, 248

  bohemianism, xvi, xx, 24, 31, 47, 52, 57, 58, 75, 77, 84, 89, 107, 153

  of Dixon, 65, 67, 72, 78–79, 107, 126, 186

  of Greenwich Village, 36, 40, 351

  homosexuality and, 53, 91–92, 120

  political ambiguity of, 125–26

  Boumphrey, Jack, 44

  Bourke-White, Margaret, 36, 46, 128, 130, 220, 280–81, 294, 305, 316, 336, 379, 393

  Boynton, Ray, 95

  Breckenridge, Sophonisba, 143

  Bremer, Ann, 91–92

  Brigman, Anne, 29, 49, 50, 78–79

  Brooklyn Museum, 53

  Bruere, Martha Bensley, 26

  Bry, Michael, 352

  Bubley, Esther, 199, 207, 220

  Butler, J. R., 275

  Butler, Nicholas Murray, 32

  Byrd, Harry, 196

  Caen, Herb, 378

  Caldwell, Erskine, 280–81

  California, University of, at Berkeley (UCB), 56, 142–43, 150–54, 158, 186–87, 200, 299, 315, 330, 331, 356–57, 395, 404, 412, 416

  Calipatria, Calif., 163, 246

  camera clubs, 44, 45, 200

  cameras, xiii, xvii–xviii, 28, 39, 92, 132, 293, 299, 315, 317, 353

  devices for, 131–32, 292, 404

  East Kodak box, 31–32

  fast-action Leica, 128, 350, 404

  Graflex single-lens reflex, 34, 116, 132, 211

  Rolleiflex, 132, 157, 211, 212

  35-mm, 211–12, 387

  Zeiss Juwell, 211

  Capa, Robert, 128, 234, 350

  Carmel, Calif., 83, 92, 119, 126, 152, 337–38

  Carter, Paul, 200, 206

  Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 350, 410, 424

  celebrity photographers, 32, 35, 53, 62–63

  Chatham County, N.C., 262

  Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants, 33, 43, 47, 92, 117, 325, 329, 332

  as farmworkers, 148, 225, 257, 258

  civil rights movement, xv, xx, 193, 228, 274–75, 276, 361, 385, 402, 403, 411, 412, 416, 428

  Clausen, Gertrude, 57, 106–7

  Coachella Valley, Calif., 216

  Cold War, xx, 346, 355, 358, 359, 361, 362, 363, 384–87, 395–96, 403, 425

  Coles, Robert, 24, 242

  Collier, John, Jr., 88–89, 89, 90, 97, 115, 186, 202, 205

  Collier, John, Sr., 55, 88

  Collins, Isabel Porter, 66

  Collins, Tom, 228, 230

  Columbia University, 32, 35–37, 142, 193–94, 198, 200

  commercial photography, 117–18, 129, 197

  Commons, John R., 142, 145

  Communist party, Communists, 95–96, 109, 126–27, 274, 316, 358

  anticommunism, 84, 124, 129–30, 131, 134, 168, 198, 227, 356, 384–85, 395; see also McCarthyism

  as union organizers, 149, 151, 227, 229, 274–75

  Conrat, Richard, 399–400, 404–5, 406, 415

  Coppa, “Papa” Giuseppe, 67, 78, 92, 186

  cotton, 150, 151, 164, 165, 201, 211, 233–34, 250–51, 267, 268, 270, 273, 283, 285

  County Clare, Ireland, 371, 372

  Cunningham, Imogen, xxii, 41, 49–50, 51, 54, 64, 72, 76, 79, 91, 107, 112, 118, 120, 157, 159, 172, 180, 212, 415, 424

  Dahl-Wolfe, Louise, 49, 54, 117, 118

  Davenport, Homer, 67

  Davis, James E., 256–57

  Delano, Irene, 207, 210

  Delano, Jack, xix, 199, 205–6, 207, 240, 263–64, 280, 297


  Dellums, C. L., 316

  Delta Cooperative Farm, 276–78

  Delta King riverboat, 112

  democracy, xiii, xiv, xix, xx, xxiii, 36, 95, 125, 157, 160, 199, 221, 229, 243, 256, 266, 318, 359

  DL as photographer of, 423–30

  foreign rural, 384–87, 394–95

  social realism and, 219

  visual, xii–xix, xxiii, 423–30

  Depression era, xiv–xv, xx, 55, 58, 93–100, 105–87, 193–300, 351, 363, 428

  anticommunism in, 124, 129–30, 131, 134, 168, 198, 227

  anti-Semitism in, 124–25

  artists in, 94–97, 106, 123, 125–27, 128–31, 196, 203

  breadlines in, 94, 102, 115–16, 131

  political activism in, 122, 125–27, 132–36, 187, 194

  progression of, 93–94, 124

  as structural economic crisis, 199, 221–22

  unemployment in, 93–94, 100, 106, 115, 121–23, 124, 128, 133, 156–57, 324, 332

  workers’ strikes in, 133, 134–36, 149–50, 155, 165

  Dewey, John, 32, 36, 82, 126, 133

  de Young, Mike, 43, 55, 97

  Dies, Martin, Jr., 355

  Dixon, Constance “Consie,” 70, 71, 71, 77, 78, 79–83, 90, 108, 176, 427

  Becky, daughter of, 185–86

  DL’s photographs of, 82, 82

  DL’s relationship with, 80–82, 83, 87–89, 97, 176, 180, 185–86

  John Collier, Jr., and, 89, 97, 186

  placing out of, 83, 84

  in Taos, 97, 98

  Dixon, Daniel Rhodes, xvi, xxi, 56, 57, 86, 87–88, 90–91, 105, 112, 136–39, 259, 308–10, 339, 349, 416, 422, 427

  in blended family, 175–85

  in Ireland, 370, 373

  military service of, 309, 347

  parents’ divorce and, 172

  placing out of, 108–10, 111, 136, 161, 173–74, 176–80, 308

  in Taos, 97–98, 100, 106

  in Utah project, 367–70

  wedding of, 365

  Dixon, Edith Hamlin, 180, 348–49

  Dixon, Harry St. John, 76, 179

  Dixon, Helen, 179, 182, 365, 380–81, 381, 383, 392, 394, 415, 416

  Dixon, John (Goodnews) Eaglefeather, xvi, xxi, 56, 57, 86, 87–88, 90, 105, 112, 136–39, 182, 309–10, 313, 339, 365, 374, 383, 394, 416, 422

  in blended family, 175–85

  placing out of, 108–10, 111, 136, 161, 173–74, 176–80

  in Taos, 97–98, 100, 106

  Dixon, Maynard, xv, xvi, xviii, xxii, 50, 53–54, 65–74, 66, 75–100, 76, 86, 121, 122, 129, 132, 151, 157, 168, 185, 223–24, 308, 310, 367, 382–84, 417

  anti-Semitism of, 91–92

  artist friends of, 67, 68, 72, 78–79, 92, 172

  asthma and emphysema of, 130, 138, 180, 349

  in Bohemian Club, 68–69, 70, 79, 93

  bohemian social life of, 65, 67, 72, 78–79, 107, 126, 186

 

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