Source: Photo, Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California, Dorothea Lange, Library of Congress.
Source: Photo, Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California, Dorothea Lange, Library of Congress.
The image above is often referred to as the "Migrant Mother." This photo was taken by Dorothea Lange for the U.S. Farm Security Administration as part of a project to document the lives of migrant families affected by the Great Depression.
After looking at this photo, how do you think the Great Depression affected families? Why do you think families, such as the one pictured above, had to migrate?
Read photographer Dorothea Lange’s experience on photographing this mother and her family: Lange's experience
This family is just one of millions who were devastated by the Great Depression. These families, however, were given hope by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The New Deal saw a flurry of legislative activity. The Roosevelt Administration created so many new programs that most programs became known by their three-letter acronyms. The Works Progress Administration was simply the WPA; the National Recovery Act was the NRA, etc. People joked that the New Deal was nothing but a governmental case of alphabet soup!
Watch the following video about President Franklin Roosevelt’s development of the New Deal:
All of these programs were aimed at helping different groups of people and addressing different needs during the Great Depression. In this lesson, you will try to better understand FDR's soup recipe.
