Lange’s photographs in the South focused on housing and the appalling racial inequities. As with her photographs of Asian and Mexican farmworkers in California, her depictions of Black farmers included intergenerational families to demonstrate their deep ties to the land. Her portraits of Black family homes — always taken on the exterior of their dwellings — aimed not simply to showcase the conditions in which they lived but also to lift up their dignity, pride, and resilience, positioning them as equally deserving of full and equal rights for a white audience.
Over the course of their work together, Lange and Taylor became strong advocates for housing assistance and other relief programs that improved the lives of agricultural workers and their families. Most often, their appeals for federal intervention were implicit, expressed in the ways that Lange staged and framed her photographs. Still, in some cases, she made them more explicit in both the composition of her photographs and in her captions.
Museum Map
WISHING
TREE
The Proof is in Our History
- 1.Welcome
- 2.Museum Lobby
- 3.The Age of Mass Migration - Landing
- 4.The Age of Mass Migration - Main
- 5.Immigration from Europe – for tours
- 6.Jane Addams and Hull House
- 7.On the Breadline
- 8.Beginnings
- 9.Farm Family Portraits
- 10.An Unequal Recovery
- 11.How did the Food Stamp Program work?
- 12.Hunger, Justice, and Civil Rights - Landing
- 13.Hunger, Justice, and Civil Rights - Main
- 14.Walk for Decent Welfare (Columbus, OH)
- 15.Televising the War on Hunger - Landing
- 16.Televising the War on Hunger - Main
- 17.CBS’s “Hunger in America”
- 18.President Lyndon B. Johnson
- 19.Senator George McGovern and Senator Robert Dole
- 20.Dr. Jean Mayer and the White House Conference
- 21.1975-1996: The Unmaking of the Great Society
- 22.Government Cheese
- 23.The Welfare Queen
- 24.The Return of the Welfare Queen
- 25.Crises of New Proportions - Landing
- 26.Crises of New Proportions - Main
- 27.COVID-19
- 28.COVID-19 – 2nd photo for tours
- 29.Wishing Tree
- 30.End tour
MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger