Stories
Dorothea Lange was a storyteller.
In 1939, during the Great Depression, Lange was piecing together the “big story” behind the many personal and local stories she told of poverty and despair, generosity and hope. A single photograph could not tell the whole story. Nor could photographs alone.
To tell her stories more deeply, Lange began to write reports, which she linked to groups of photographs. She called these reports general captions.
The stories Lange told in 1939 are still unfolding. Somehow, in the process of following Lange’s stories, they became my own.
Dorothea Lange’s General Captions of 1939
1939: Lange reports from the field
2005-2006: Anne Whiston Spirn tracks the continuing stories