From the BBC:
Franklin D Roosevelt
, who became President in 1933, introduced a series of measures called the New Deal to help counteract the effects of The Great Depression.
The Farm Security Administration was set up to assist farmers and agricultural workers. As well as administering the distribution of loans and providing vital services like healthcare, the FSA employed some of the 20th Century’s finest photographers to document the lives of Americans in need.
Perhaps the best-known photograph from the project was Migrant Mother, an image Dorethea Lange took in a pea-pickers camp in Nipomo, California.
Writing in 1960, Lange said: “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions.
More here.