DOROTHEA LANGE (1895–1965)

White Angel Bread Line, San Francisco is Dorothea Lange’s earliest renowned documentary-style image, depicting a solitary figure with hands clasped, a well-worn hat pulled low on his brow, turned away from a gathering of poverty-stricken men waiting in a breadline at a San Francisco soup kitchen. This particular soup kitchen was independently run, with no outside funding, by Lois Jordan, a wealthy widow known to locals as the White Angel. Jordan is credited with feeding roughly one million men over several years.

Taken during the throes of the Great Depression, Lange’s photographic work at the time led to her employment with the Federal Resettlement Administration (RA), which later became the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Under these programs, photographers and writers were recruited to document the plight of the impoverished class across America. The Information Division of the FSA, under the direction of Roy Stryker, adopted a goal of 'introducing America to Americans.'

Prints of this image reside in institutional collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Oakland Museum of California.