By Eliza Visconsi Class of 2025

Dual Lenses: Art and Documentation in the Photography of Dorothea Lange

Editor’s Note: The History Fellowship program offers students the opportunity to conduct college-level independent research on a historical topic of their choice, resulting in a substantial academic paper and oral presentation. Through guided discussions, structured support, and access to both on- and off-campus sources, students learn and apply the practices of professional historians.

“We’ve had no work since March. The worst thing we did was when we sold the car, but we had to sell it to eat, and now we can’t get away from here. . . . This county’s a hard county. They won’t help bury you here. If you die, you’re dead, that’s all.” Nettie Featherston, a migrant woman, wife, and mother living in the impoverished Texas Panhandle during the height of the American Great Depression, said these words to Dorothea Lange. Lange was a photographer working for the New Deal’s Farm Security Administration, traveling across rural America to tell the stories of its suffering inhabitants through photography. By saying, “they won’t help bury you here,” Featherston verbalizes a sense of government abandonment and a lack of solidarity with others. This quote explicitly describes her exhaustion and hopelessness, and the accompanying image implies it. By viewing both, one could observe and understand her fatigue, a feeling shared by many Americans during the Great Depression.

Featherston’s portrait mirrors her vocalized sentiments of deprivation, frustration, and despair. Her face is worn and worried: her sunken eyes match her sunken spirit. Her disheveled hair indicates a loss of control over her life. Her dress is torn and frayed. Her hands, planted awkwardly on her neck and forehead, signal distress. Against the backdrop of arid farm fields and a wide expanse of sky, Featherston portrays a sense of hopelessness. She represents the weariness of the Depression.

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