Roadside camp near Bakersfield, California
November 1935
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 20.4 × 18.7 cm (8 1/16 × 7 3/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Accession Number
2016.191.50
Art Historical Context
In November 1935, Dorothea captured *Roadside camp near Bakersfield, California*, a poignant gelatin silver print that embodies the stark realities of the Depression. As a pioneering documentary photographer for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), Lange traveled the American West, chronicling the plight of Dust Bowl migrants—families uprooted by drought and economic collapse, seeking work in California's fertile valleys. Bakersfield, in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, became a hub for these "Okies" and others, who often resorted to makeshift roadside camps amid widespread poverty and ...
About the Artist
Dorothea Lange · 1895–1965
Dorothea Lange, born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn on May 26, 1895, in Hoboken, New Jersey, overcame significant personal challenges to become one of America's most influential documentary photographers. Stricken with polio at age seven, she developed a lifelong limp that she credited with shaping her empathetic worldview, famously stating it "formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me, and hum...