Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits »

Linda Gordon is the Florence Kelley Professor of History at New York University. She is the author of numerous books including Dorothea Lange and Impounded, and won the Bancroft Prize for The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. She lives in New York.

Winner of the 2010 Bancroft Prize and finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography: The definitive biography of a heroic chronicler of America's Depression and one of the twentieth century's greatest photographers.

The New York Times - David Oshinsky

Gordon expertly analyzes the political culture of Depression-era California, where the enormous power of big agriculture kept tens of thousands of landless workers in peonage and despair. She portrays Lange as an ambivalent radical, deeply sympathetic to the plight of the migrants yet uncomfortable with the chaos that social conflict inevitably produced…Gordon's elegant biography is testament to Lange's gift for challenging her country to open its eyes.

Introduction "A Camera Is a Tool for Learning How to See ..."

Pt. I Hoboken and San Francisco 1895-1931

Scene 1 3

1 Child of Iron, Wounded 4

2 Apprentice to the City 21

3 Becoming a Photographer 42

4 Maynard Dixon, Bohemian Artist 65

5 Working Mother in Bohemia 75

Pt. II Depression and Renewal 1932-1935

Scene 2 103

6 Leaving the Children, Leaving the Studio 105

7 A New Deal for Artists 121

8 Paul Schuster Taylor, Maverick Economist 140

9 The Romance of Love, the Romance of the Cause 155

10 Blending a Family 175

Pt. III Creating Documentary Photography 1935-1939

Scene 3 191

11 Father Stryker and the Beloved Community 193

12 On the Road: California 209

13 Migrant Mother 235

14 On the Road: The Dust Bowl 244

15 On the Road: The South 259

16 An American Exodus 279

17 Dorothea and Roy 287

Pt. IV Wartime 1939-1945

Scene 4 303

18 Family Stress 305

19 Defiant War Photography: The Japanese Internment 314

20 Unruly War Photography: The Office of War Information and Defense Workers 327

Pt. V Independent Photographer 1945-1965

Scene 5 343

21 Surviving in the Cold 345

22 Working for Life 366

23 Diplomat's Wife 382

24 To a Cabin 401

25 Photographer of Democracy 423

Lange's Photograph Captions 431

Acknowledgments 435

Note on Photographs and Quotations 437

Notes 439

Photograph Sources 519

Index 523