Born on this day in Hoboken, New Jersey (1895–1965), Dorothea Lange was seven years old when polio altered the way she walked—but never the way she saw. From Columbia University to global travels, her camera became her voice, her protest, her prayer.

“Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion,” she said. “The subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.” And so she did. First, she photographed portraits. Then, she documented pain.

With quiet courage, Lange turned her lens to the forgotten—the breadlines of the Great Depression, the worn faces of migrant mothers, the children and women of the Dust Bowl. Her 1936 photograph Migrant Mother became a national symbol of resilience. A single image. A thousand silent stories.

“I was following instinct, not reason,” she explained. That instinct made history visible. Made suffering known. And forced change.

In 1942, she photographed the forced relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps. The images were deemed too honest, too raw—so they were hidden. Today, they’re archived as essential testimony to injustice. Her lens never flinched.

She once said the camera was an extension of her body—something that lived with her, like breath. Every photo was a choice: to see, to witness, to share.

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