Dorothea Lange

Pioneering documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, challenged in her childhood by contracting polio and by the abandonment by her father, decided at a young age to become a photographer. After graduation, she obtained work in leading photographers” studios. She became an empathic observer of people in the context of their lives by walking through many parts of New York City.



In 1942, Lange and Ansel Adams photographed Richmond, California’s rapidly changing wartime communities. Lange sensitized America and the world to the injustices of the Japanese American internment of World War II, through her War Relocation Authority photographs.


Dorothea Lange

Year Honored: 2003

Birth: 1895 - 1965

Born In: New Jersey

Achievements: Arts

Educated In: New York, United States of America