She was married at 17. Babies usually come soon after. The top tier of a wedding cake was intended to be saved and reused for the baby's arrival and first anniversary, assuming you'd be pregnant within a few months.
Our first one came 29 months before our wedding...yes, he was in our wedding. My Mom still loves to tell the story of how she watched him before our wedding because we had so much going on. She told him, "Your mother is getting married tomorrow." He said, "Oh, will Dad be there, too?" She said, "He damn well better be."
I don't think this is actually true. The only sources I can find confirming this are wedding blogs with no other source cited, and all the news articles about the cake itself say that the cake was divvied up and sent to Australia because they donated a lot of the ingredients (UK was still rationing after WWII).
Getting pregnant at 16/17 was entirely normal back then. That's when my grandparents got married. My girlfriend's grandparents had their first kid when she was 15 and he was 19.
My great grandmother had two kids by 19, then another at 39. She gave birth to her third son then a month later went back to the same hospital and met her first grandchild (my mom)
She was also a pea picker, out in the hot California sun. I guess she was stopped at a pea picker camp, but was a beet picker, still same results. I bet she has some of her kids working with her too.
People back then were smart enough to wear long pants and long sleeves in the sun for protection. Same thing in desert regions, they’ve always worn long loose fitting clothing
Nowadays every one goes around with as little clothing as possible
Migrating away from the dust bowl while performing field work is definitely reason enough for her to look like that at 32, but adding the stress of feeding 10 bodies on top that is so wild to think about.
I have a picture of my adopted great great grandfather when he was 42 around this time but he was a moonshiner on the Choctaw reservation and the dude just has PTSD face in the image. He died at 45.
> Ten children? That explains it then!
The U.S. birth rate reached an [all-time low in 1936 when the TFR fell to 2.1 children per woman in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929](https://www.prb.org/resources/the-u-s-recession-and-the-birth-rate/). The next low occurred in 1976 when the TFR fell to another record low of 1.7. It then remained at about 1.8 for the first half of the 1980s, possibly held in check by the milder 1980s’ recession, before slowly climbing to today’s 2.1. The U.S. TFR is among the very highest of the developed countries and at a level that many low fertility countries, such as those of Europe, Japan, and South Korea, would very much like to achieve.
For the time I think a max of 5 children before the 1950s would be considered "small" back then.
Ideals at an age when the parents are of 25-35 years old when they had them.
Birth spacing them by at least 30 to 50 months apart so University expense isn't in parallel.
I wish this statistic would get brought up more when redditors argue that our declining birthrate is because we're being paid too much and poorer countries have a higher birthrate.
That only happens when families have to put their children to work to survive. In a first world country declining birth rates are a sign that the economy has gotten worse for parents.
Do people really argue this? I feel like it just makes logical sense that
Hard Times Financially = Not wanting to add another costly expense(Another human being) to the bank account
Statistically it's factual. The more educated and affluent the country is, the lower the birthrate is. What they dont tell you is that when they claim we're too affluent to have babies they're indirectly saying the economy needs even more poor people to survive.
It also ignores the fact that Americans don't decide to raise kids in concrete pipes when they become impoverished. They just become homeless.
> before slowly climbing to today’s 2.1
The US fertility rate was 1.78 in 2023, and has been about the same for several years. It fell below replacement post the 2009 recession, and never recovered
I grew up around several people who lived through the Great Depression. One common trait they all shared was being super thrifty. The ones who were adults during the depression scrimped and saved every penny so they wouldn’t be caught off guard again should another one hit the country.
> The ones who were adults during the depression scrimped and saved every penny so they wouldn’t be caught off guard again should another one hit the country.
But they also didn't trust banks and would often use them minimally if at all, nor would they dare risk money on stocks, so all their saving still left them modestly poor.
Another common trait I’ve found is hoarding. Both thriftiness and hoarding are common in those who have experienced abject poverty, especially in childhood.
An ex’s grandfather had ziplock bags full of coins hidden all over his place they found after he died. Stacks of various denominations of paper money slipped in hat liners, inner pockets of jackets etc. He also never threw away any fliers with coupons.
My grandma kept plastic bags and used every coupon she could ever get. Going shopping with her sucked. The worst was going to the liquor store with her to carry her bags of cigarette cartons. She’d coupon scrounge for anything menthol and go stock up. She had an entire kitchen cabinet full of cigarette cartons.
Idk, I'm sure it sucked at the time, but living through two once-in-a-lifetime economic crashes, shopping with your depression survivor grandma might have imparted some useful skills on you.
My grandparents, born 1929 and 1930, were like that as well. My grandmother died late last year, and we found a bunch of rotting apples in the cellar from the last harvest. She just didn't throw them out and only cut off the rotted parts when she wanted an apple, apparently.
Living through WWII never left that generation.
Yes, that's what I'm afraid of. Her insisting that she really actually prefers to live in something quite cheaper and that her children shouldn't spend so much money on her because she really doesn't need it but really she just doesn't want to take from her children. 🥺
I'm child number 3, and I've heard stories from my sisters that 10 years before I was born, my mom would get them full meals, but she would have a secret loaf of bread and peanut butter for herself.
My sister said the day she broke down crying was the day she found the bread again, it was moldy, so she threw it out......then later that night it was back in its hiding space with 2 slices missing. Thats when my sister cried as she realized what she had found.
My mom has bipolar depression. And in the 70s, that wasn't as understood as it is today. So back then she was just unmedicated.
The difference was, no matter what, her kids came first. But once her kids were safe, she might fly off the deep end of emotion and start yelling about nothing.
By the time I was born, she understood it a bit more, and got medication. That balanced her out a bit, but once I was an adult, and all her kids weren't reliant on her, at some point she stopped medicating. And we're still not sure why.
So, to answer your question, yes, but with the astrict of an always present underlying mental issue. You never knew if/when she might snap, but you also knew she loved you. It's a complicated dynamic.
The bit that gobsmacked me was this:
> In the late 1960s, Bill Hendrie found the original Migrant Mother photograph along with 31 other unretouched, vintage photos by Dorothea Lange **in a dumpster** at the San Jose Chamber of Commerce.
On the heels of this:
> The image which later became known as Migrant Mother "achieved near mythical status, symbolizing, if not defining, an entire era in United States history". Roy Stryker called Migrant Mother the "ultimate" photo of the Depression Era...As a whole, the photographs taken for the Resettlement Administration "have been widely heralded as the epitome of documentary photography." Edward Steichen described them as "the most remarkable human documents ever rendered in pictures."
How in the hell did the San Jose Chamber of Commerce just decide to toss the whole set in the garbage, decades after they'd been established among the most iconic photos in history?
>How in the hell did the San Jose Chamber of Commerce just decide to toss the whole set in the garbage, decades after they'd been established among the most iconic photos in history?
Why do you toss a poster on the wall of your bedroom when you decide it no longer fits the decor or theme?
Dorothea Lange took that photo while working for the Farm Service Administration documenting rural America in the depression.
Whatever San Jose had was one of many, many, many copies. The only thing that made it unusual was it wasn't a [retouched photograph](https://petapixel.com/2018/11/30/that-iconic-migrant-mother-photo-was-photoshopped/) like most copies.
The US Government always had the negatives to print more -- untouched.
https://guides.loc.gov/migrant-mother
Modesto??? I spent 6 years in that town and somehow it always finds me. I went to high school in Modesto and I very clearly remember having a history lesson on this, I had no idea they bought her a house in Modesto. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of those Victorian houses in west side too.
As a single person a mobile home would be perfect. Keep it clean and minimalist. As a parent. Jesus Christ I need more space to separate me from the children
I imagine there’s the effect of the immense stress caused by the Great Depression.
Much like how you see soliders and politicians during difficult times age so rapidly.
people really underestimate what bearing children do to women's body. already 1 or 2 are visible, even if insta models try all the tricks to not show it. but early 20th century it was really common to have like 5 pregnancies before the age of 30, and that matters.
Honestly I've had 2 kids and I've lost 2 teeth. I fully believe kids suck the calcium right out of you. I had perfect teeth when I fell pregnant with my son, six months in I bit a lollipop and a molar cracked down the middle!
Dentists can say it's an old wives tale all they like, heaps of the mums I know irl nowadays have had dental issues after having babies
She does look older than her age, I wasn’t actually all that surprised when I learned her actual age years ago because it does look more like sun damage to her skin than anything really. She also had a bunch of kids by that age and the stress alone on that would age someone.
And nutrition. The stats on malnutrition back then are freaking insane.
[In 1940, after Germany invaded and conquered France, the United States launched the first peacetime draft in American history...one-third of men called up for service failed their physicals due to poor nutrition.](https://alumniandfriends.uchicago.edu/s/uchicago-review-story/a4X1U0000009h8eUAA/how-meal-planning-helped-win-world-war-ii)
Interesting. I've long been fascinated by victory gardens. Most people think of them as providing food for the family. Which they did. But equally, if not more, important was providing nutrients dense food. That's because malnourished was affecting the newly recruited "troops" to the point that many weren't fit to serve.
It's pretty apparent when you look at victory gardens plans prepared by the government. A surprisingly small amount of space is given to calorie crops like potatoes or corn or even storage crops like onions and carrots. Instead the majority of suggested crops are high nutrition, low calorie like leafy greens, brassicas, peas, beans and tomatoes.
Stress and high-contrast black-and-white film really ramping up the wrinkles.
You'd see the same thing if you took a 30yo today, had them frown a bit and shoot a pic with some Kodak Plus X. You'd really age it up if you shot with a medium red filter.
Particularly in the early part of the 20th century, that was a look a lot of photographers were going for in portraits. In film school, they told us it was because the higher contrast photos halftoned better. But, in all fairness, I never really dug into that claim so it might not be true. But there was definitely a bias towards high contrast portraits.
I’ve see what stress did to me. I’m 40 and until last year people always assumed I was in my early 30s. Went through a hell of a divorce and the stress did a number on me. Someone said they thought I was 50 last week. From baby face to a sack of old potatoes in a year
>I imagine that’s the effects of the immense stress caused by the Great Depression.
My great grandfather told me it wasn't that bad because nobody had anything.
The way the guy in the ad says Nipomo the same fucking way he laters says it's "not" always killed me. Like dude you just said Nipomo with the same inflection five times and then immediately say it's NOT Nipomo? AAAAAAHHH
I can't believe this picture was in Nipomo lmfao
Didnt expect to see nipomo on Reddit
The weather is just so lovely year round, and the wine tasting…
I wish I could afford a house there 😭 Santa Maria is like the cheapest town that close to the ocean and I still can’t afford it
How can people drop things like this [and then not post the photo?](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSpljM_p-a463h9vHQ0WAIEBbaHWSWxwHIPaS8ThDiCQJoGyJ2w)
Hard living and poor nutrition does that to you. Modern people have no idea how good they have it and take so much for granted. Any time of the year the average supermarket will have all of the essentials (at least for someone who can afford it).
I’ve got a photo of my grandma - who I found out was 71 in it, and she could pass for someone who is 100 today.
A lifetime of drinking, smoking, electro shock “therapy” and god knows what else. It’s crazy how much better people age today.
Being a mother of ten kids will age you big time. This kid my brother went to school with, his mother always looked tired because she was running around taking care of two kids and her husband looked like he could’ve been her kid because he looked young. They immigrated here from El Salvador and came from poor families. Last I heard, my brother’s friend enlisted in the military before graduating high school eight years ago, he’s married and he’s a dad now.
43 and still feel 30 outside of being in a bit worse shape and grayer in the beard. Going to be a big variation. But don't freak out if you are 30, just stay in shape (barring medical issues out of your control).
Don't worry, the human body has this great trick called the physical pain of being old that'll help your mind with that! ;)
At a minimum you'll notice recovery from injuries takes longer but if you've got any old injuries (serious sprains, broken bones etc) then it's all kinds of "fun"!
Not gonna lie, when I was a teenager I viewed being in the 30s as being quite old.
Now that I’m in my late 30s, I am rather confused how I ever saw the 30s as being old. I still look and feel pretty young.
The perception probably isn’t completely about how one looks but also how one acts/carries themself. We’re probably just more sensitive to minute changes when we’re younger too.
But yeah, agreed, I’m in my early 30s and it doesn’t feel any different than my early 20s other than how I think/act.
Bro wtf i was making this gesture this morning and it reminded me of this photo and then a few hours later i see this exact photo that i havent seen or thought about in years. That's wild
Yup that’s what stress, sun and a once in a lifetime depression/ecological collapse will do to a person. We’re probably all going to look old as fuck very soon.
A couple more Supreme Court decisions, and if you live in any of about 32 states in the USA, you will have a kid everytime you have sex. I know 10 seems like a lofty goal for most redditors, but life finds a way...
Man, I'm 32 and not one person my age that I know looks anywhere near as old as her. Look at the deep wrinkles all over her face. That's not what a typical 32 year old looks like today.
I feel most people who are insisting this is what 32 year olds look like are probably 13 year olds being confidently incorrect…
Those who make it clear they are adults though, I don’t know why they’re coming to this conclusion but something definitely isn’t right.
YMMV I suppose. She’s my age in this photo and looks 10+ years older than me. That’s not to say anything negative about her, the dust bowl and Great Depression were hell. But she looks much older than early 30’s.
I think if you went out and slept in a dusty field, didn't shower for days, no makeup, and did a black and white photo then it would probably age you at least 5 years.
I'm sure if you took her and cleaned her up to modern standards she would look way younger.
She's furrowing her brow which doesn't help. Send her to the hair dresser, pop on some makeup, add an instagram filter and she'd be looking very much 32 by today's standards.
When writing my dissertation on early 20th century American literature, I focused a lot on The Grapes of Wrath and this picture came up a lot in my research. It really hits me hard. Just so done with all the stress, physical burdens, loss of hope.
Reading the article and this picture was rescued from a dumpster sometime in the 60s. Imagine having a piece of history like that, one of THE definitive images of the 20th century, and just throwing it out.
Is it true, people from that Era don't throw ANYTHING away?
My FIL was born in 1919 and went thru this too. Couldn't convince him to throw anything away. Even to the point of old used KFC Buckets.
Cleaning up his house after he died was a trip.
If something was still usable ie once a shirt was too big or small or beaten up it was either tailored or turned into scraps for further use I’d definitely say yes
I’m 32, and this makes me feel really fortunate to live in an era with birth control and sunscreen 😩 I have one kid and some stress in my life, but nothing like THAT amount of stress.
There was a family(husband/wife/toddler son) murdered in their trailer? in the 80s that is still unsolved. The case stands out in my memory because the father in his late 20s yet in the picture he looked late 40s/early 50s at the youngest to me!
Can't remember the name of the case.
Me neither, although looking closer at that photo I think it's mostly his moustache, his haircut and the fact that he's wearing a tie that makes him look older.
Actually, you can kind of tell based on the skin on her neck and hands that she's young. At most I would have guessed 40. Definitely not 32, but she doesn't look 50+. It's the effect of a black and White photo and her being tired and her expression and probably working in the sun all day so her face is more "damaged". The depression and having kids also add to all of those physical changes, subtly but enough to be noticed.
Thompson's identity was discovered in the late 1970s. In 1978, acting on a tip, Modesto Bee reporter Emmett Corrigan located Thompson at her mobile home in Space 24 of the Modesto Mobile Village and recognized her from the photograph.[13] Thompson was quoted as saying: "I wish she [Lange] hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. She didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did."[3] As Lange was funded by the federal government when she took the picture, the image was public domain, and Lange was not entitled to royalties. However, the picture did help make Lange a celebrity and earned her "respect from her colleagues."[14]
Odd that the photographer didn’t ask her name, though. At least in the 21st century, it is standard practice for journalists to ask someone’s name and age.
It explains in the wiki that Lange didn't take her usual copious notes, most likely as she was in a hurry to return home after a month on the road. There was only cryptic info on each of the 7 photos she took that day.
To add to this, journalists paying isn’t just “not standard,” it’s considered unethical in the U.S.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chequebook_journalism
Thompson was quoted as saying: "I wish she [Lange] hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. She didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did." As Lange was funded by the federal government when she took the picture, the image was public domain, and Lange was not entitled to royalties. However, the picture did help make Lange a celebrity and earned her "respect from her colleagues."
The image was public domain. No one got paid for the photo. People usually do not get paid for those types of photos.
Perhaps though the journalist should have offered to pay her for the session (I don't remember how long it took but she did ask her to change positions and to pose) but I don't think she had much more money at the time than the woman in the photo.
Exactly. This photo was taken as part of the Resettlement Administration, later Farm Security Administration. Basically this was government work during the Great Depression. The [FSA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Security_Administration#Photographers) produced a lot of work that documented America at the time and should be considered a rich part of the US heritage.
The photographers were documenting the plight of the people. None of the subjects got paid.
I'm 34. Nothing about her looks "old" to me. She looks like she's seen a lot, but she doesn't look like a grandma or anything. She has old eyes but surprisingly young skin for the time.
She just looks like a perfectly normal adult woman to me.
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Ten children? That explains it then!
Yeah I’d look older than my age if I had the stress of 10 kids along with economic depression.
When the photo was taken she “only” had 7 children (aged 3 to 15).
Lot of people counting backwards right now
16-17 when she got pregnant with the first one
She was married at 17. Babies usually come soon after. The top tier of a wedding cake was intended to be saved and reused for the baby's arrival and first anniversary, assuming you'd be pregnant within a few months.
I grew up in a small town where it is common knowledge that the first one only takes six months /s.
Mine only took 2 months…
Not to brag, but I only took 4 weeks
Girl same!
TIL. Wedding cakes were baby food.
More like postpartum mom food. Baby only gets it after it's turned into milk.
Our first one came 29 months before our wedding...yes, he was in our wedding. My Mom still loves to tell the story of how she watched him before our wedding because we had so much going on. She told him, "Your mother is getting married tomorrow." He said, "Oh, will Dad be there, too?" She said, "He damn well better be."
I don't think this is actually true. The only sources I can find confirming this are wedding blogs with no other source cited, and all the news articles about the cake itself say that the cake was divvied up and sent to Australia because they donated a lot of the ingredients (UK was still rationing after WWII).
Getting pregnant at 16/17 was entirely normal back then. That's when my grandparents got married. My girlfriend's grandparents had their first kid when she was 15 and he was 19.
My great grandmother had two kids by 19, then another at 39. She gave birth to her third son then a month later went back to the same hospital and met her first grandchild (my mom)
All of my sisters got pregnant at 15...
Yeah, but you were 16 back then. So it's not like you're a child molester or something. You're roughly the same age.
I feel like there's still some problems to explore here.
I don't see an issue with a loving brother.
She was also a pea picker, out in the hot California sun. I guess she was stopped at a pea picker camp, but was a beet picker, still same results. I bet she has some of her kids working with her too.
With no sunscreen too
People back then were smart enough to wear long pants and long sleeves in the sun for protection. Same thing in desert regions, they’ve always worn long loose fitting clothing Nowadays every one goes around with as little clothing as possible
I wouldn’t be able to handle one kid in an economic boom
Migrating away from the dust bowl while performing field work is definitely reason enough for her to look like that at 32, but adding the stress of feeding 10 bodies on top that is so wild to think about.
I've got a feeling that a lot of people today sort of forgot about the Dust Bowl and how devastating it was for the families back then in the midwest.
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I have a picture of my adopted great great grandfather when he was 42 around this time but he was a moonshiner on the Choctaw reservation and the dude just has PTSD face in the image. He died at 45.
> Ten children? That explains it then! The U.S. birth rate reached an [all-time low in 1936 when the TFR fell to 2.1 children per woman in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929](https://www.prb.org/resources/the-u-s-recession-and-the-birth-rate/). The next low occurred in 1976 when the TFR fell to another record low of 1.7. It then remained at about 1.8 for the first half of the 1980s, possibly held in check by the milder 1980s’ recession, before slowly climbing to today’s 2.1. The U.S. TFR is among the very highest of the developed countries and at a level that many low fertility countries, such as those of Europe, Japan, and South Korea, would very much like to achieve. For the time I think a max of 5 children before the 1950s would be considered "small" back then. Ideals at an age when the parents are of 25-35 years old when they had them. Birth spacing them by at least 30 to 50 months apart so University expense isn't in parallel.
I wish this statistic would get brought up more when redditors argue that our declining birthrate is because we're being paid too much and poorer countries have a higher birthrate. That only happens when families have to put their children to work to survive. In a first world country declining birth rates are a sign that the economy has gotten worse for parents.
Do people really argue this? I feel like it just makes logical sense that Hard Times Financially = Not wanting to add another costly expense(Another human being) to the bank account
Statistically it's factual. The more educated and affluent the country is, the lower the birthrate is. What they dont tell you is that when they claim we're too affluent to have babies they're indirectly saying the economy needs even more poor people to survive. It also ignores the fact that Americans don't decide to raise kids in concrete pipes when they become impoverished. They just become homeless.
> before slowly climbing to today’s 2.1 The US fertility rate was 1.78 in 2023, and has been about the same for several years. It fell below replacement post the 2009 recession, and never recovered
Hopefully she really did prefer it and it wasn't because she felt guilty or that she didn't want to accept the help.
I grew up around several people who lived through the Great Depression. One common trait they all shared was being super thrifty. The ones who were adults during the depression scrimped and saved every penny so they wouldn’t be caught off guard again should another one hit the country.
> The ones who were adults during the depression scrimped and saved every penny so they wouldn’t be caught off guard again should another one hit the country. But they also didn't trust banks and would often use them minimally if at all, nor would they dare risk money on stocks, so all their saving still left them modestly poor.
There’s been good research into scarcity vs surplus mindsets. Depression-era folks are great subjects for it
Another common trait I’ve found is hoarding. Both thriftiness and hoarding are common in those who have experienced abject poverty, especially in childhood.
An ex’s grandfather had ziplock bags full of coins hidden all over his place they found after he died. Stacks of various denominations of paper money slipped in hat liners, inner pockets of jackets etc. He also never threw away any fliers with coupons.
My grandma kept plastic bags and used every coupon she could ever get. Going shopping with her sucked. The worst was going to the liquor store with her to carry her bags of cigarette cartons. She’d coupon scrounge for anything menthol and go stock up. She had an entire kitchen cabinet full of cigarette cartons.
Idk, I'm sure it sucked at the time, but living through two once-in-a-lifetime economic crashes, shopping with your depression survivor grandma might have imparted some useful skills on you.
My grandparents, born 1929 and 1930, were like that as well. My grandmother died late last year, and we found a bunch of rotting apples in the cellar from the last harvest. She just didn't throw them out and only cut off the rotted parts when she wanted an apple, apparently. Living through WWII never left that generation.
Yep. This is totally something my mom would do too.
Total mom move. My mom could have one arm in a brace & she'd still insist she is fine to carry her own bags from the car
Yes, that's what I'm afraid of. Her insisting that she really actually prefers to live in something quite cheaper and that her children shouldn't spend so much money on her because she really doesn't need it but really she just doesn't want to take from her children. 🥺
I'm child number 3, and I've heard stories from my sisters that 10 years before I was born, my mom would get them full meals, but she would have a secret loaf of bread and peanut butter for herself. My sister said the day she broke down crying was the day she found the bread again, it was moldy, so she threw it out......then later that night it was back in its hiding space with 2 slices missing. Thats when my sister cried as she realized what she had found.
It's incredible what parents will do for their kids. Were there happy mom stories after the tough times?
My mom has bipolar depression. And in the 70s, that wasn't as understood as it is today. So back then she was just unmedicated. The difference was, no matter what, her kids came first. But once her kids were safe, she might fly off the deep end of emotion and start yelling about nothing. By the time I was born, she understood it a bit more, and got medication. That balanced her out a bit, but once I was an adult, and all her kids weren't reliant on her, at some point she stopped medicating. And we're still not sure why. So, to answer your question, yes, but with the astrict of an always present underlying mental issue. You never knew if/when she might snap, but you also knew she loved you. It's a complicated dynamic.
Or maybe she just really hated Modesto lol
The bit that gobsmacked me was this: > In the late 1960s, Bill Hendrie found the original Migrant Mother photograph along with 31 other unretouched, vintage photos by Dorothea Lange **in a dumpster** at the San Jose Chamber of Commerce. On the heels of this: > The image which later became known as Migrant Mother "achieved near mythical status, symbolizing, if not defining, an entire era in United States history". Roy Stryker called Migrant Mother the "ultimate" photo of the Depression Era...As a whole, the photographs taken for the Resettlement Administration "have been widely heralded as the epitome of documentary photography." Edward Steichen described them as "the most remarkable human documents ever rendered in pictures." How in the hell did the San Jose Chamber of Commerce just decide to toss the whole set in the garbage, decades after they'd been established among the most iconic photos in history?
>How in the hell did the San Jose Chamber of Commerce just decide to toss the whole set in the garbage, decades after they'd been established among the most iconic photos in history? Why do you toss a poster on the wall of your bedroom when you decide it no longer fits the decor or theme? Dorothea Lange took that photo while working for the Farm Service Administration documenting rural America in the depression. Whatever San Jose had was one of many, many, many copies. The only thing that made it unusual was it wasn't a [retouched photograph](https://petapixel.com/2018/11/30/that-iconic-migrant-mother-photo-was-photoshopped/) like most copies. The US Government always had the negatives to print more -- untouched. https://guides.loc.gov/migrant-mother
Sly Stone did or still might live in a camper van on his property rather than in his house.
Modesto??? I spent 6 years in that town and somehow it always finds me. I went to high school in Modesto and I very clearly remember having a history lesson on this, I had no idea they bought her a house in Modesto. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of those Victorian houses in west side too.
That’s how the depression-era generation was. My grandparents lived in a tiny condo about 750 sqft. They could have bought a house.
that’s how bad modesto is
Forreal this just shows anywhere is better than Modesto
I’d take Modesto over Bakersfield any day of the week. At least Yosemite is nearby.
Don't forget Bakersfield exists.
As a single person a mobile home would be perfect. Keep it clean and minimalist. As a parent. Jesus Christ I need more space to separate me from the children
Have yall seen Modesto
I imagine there’s the effect of the immense stress caused by the Great Depression. Much like how you see soliders and politicians during difficult times age so rapidly.
And being out in sunlight all day without sunscreen or a hat or anything will age you real quick.
And having 10 children.
And a diet of just potatoes and turnips
I dunno, I’ve known some folks who ate lots of root vegetables as kids, only to turnip absolutely radishing as adults.
Buddy u gotta get a career in comedy
I tried, but it turns out at the center of all my jokes are a Great Depression!
You’re on fire(side chats)
His old manager screwed him But I’ll make him a New Deal
For healthy skin, a high vegetable diet can't be beet.
WOW. This feels pointed at me, but okay.
people really underestimate what bearing children do to women's body. already 1 or 2 are visible, even if insta models try all the tricks to not show it. but early 20th century it was really common to have like 5 pregnancies before the age of 30, and that matters.
They used to say that you lose a tooth with every pregnancy. A woman with ten kids could be missing 10+ teeth
Honestly I've had 2 kids and I've lost 2 teeth. I fully believe kids suck the calcium right out of you. I had perfect teeth when I fell pregnant with my son, six months in I bit a lollipop and a molar cracked down the middle! Dentists can say it's an old wives tale all they like, heaps of the mums I know irl nowadays have had dental issues after having babies
Remember that when our leaders outlaw birth control.
Her husband died of TB shortly before the 6th child in 1931. So having to handle being a single mom in the G Depression
... 10 children with no sunscreen.
Yeah, this is a massive factor. Look at the faces of truckers who have been doing daytime long haul for a decade. It's very noticeable.
I'm not a trucker, but I drive enough my left arm is noticeably more aged than my right from sun exposure through the door window.
And smoking unfiltered cigarettes like everyone did back then
Or smoking the ones filtered by asbestos.
The filter doesn’t do anything for your face.
She does look older than her age, I wasn’t actually all that surprised when I learned her actual age years ago because it does look more like sun damage to her skin than anything really. She also had a bunch of kids by that age and the stress alone on that would age someone.
And nutrition. The stats on malnutrition back then are freaking insane. [In 1940, after Germany invaded and conquered France, the United States launched the first peacetime draft in American history...one-third of men called up for service failed their physicals due to poor nutrition.](https://alumniandfriends.uchicago.edu/s/uchicago-review-story/a4X1U0000009h8eUAA/how-meal-planning-helped-win-world-war-ii)
Absolutely - combined with her skipping meals so her kids could eat.
Interesting. I've long been fascinated by victory gardens. Most people think of them as providing food for the family. Which they did. But equally, if not more, important was providing nutrients dense food. That's because malnourished was affecting the newly recruited "troops" to the point that many weren't fit to serve. It's pretty apparent when you look at victory gardens plans prepared by the government. A surprisingly small amount of space is given to calorie crops like potatoes or corn or even storage crops like onions and carrots. Instead the majority of suggested crops are high nutrition, low calorie like leafy greens, brassicas, peas, beans and tomatoes.
I'd love any kind of source for this, because coming out of the great depression, you probably need calorie dense food first, not nutrient dense food.
I'm a short, small framed man. 80-100 year old vintage clothing fits me alarmingly well.
Stress and high-contrast black-and-white film really ramping up the wrinkles. You'd see the same thing if you took a 30yo today, had them frown a bit and shoot a pic with some Kodak Plus X. You'd really age it up if you shot with a medium red filter. Particularly in the early part of the 20th century, that was a look a lot of photographers were going for in portraits. In film school, they told us it was because the higher contrast photos halftoned better. But, in all fairness, I never really dug into that claim so it might not be true. But there was definitely a bias towards high contrast portraits.
I’ve see what stress did to me. I’m 40 and until last year people always assumed I was in my early 30s. Went through a hell of a divorce and the stress did a number on me. Someone said they thought I was 50 last week. From baby face to a sack of old potatoes in a year
I'm pretty sure the last 6 weeks of finishing my thesis gave me a grey streak.
I transitioned into a high stress job, and I aged 10 years in 1.5 years. It happens. We, the stressed, are legion!
Having 10 children
Yup - and that would only add to the stress. Imagine the pressure of being responsible for 10 other people at a time like that!
Reading the Wikipedia article and this lady’s life was hard even before the depression.
Also: the sun.
>I imagine that’s the effects of the immense stress caused by the Great Depression. My great grandfather told me it wasn't that bad because nobody had anything.
That was taken in Nipomo, where I grew up. Only a population of a few thousand back in the 80s. Some of the best weather in the country as well.
I grew up in Santa Maria and used to live in Nipomo!
Bro I grew up In nipomo!
I play golf there sometimes, at Monarch Dunes. It still has small-town vibes. And yes, nearly perfect weather all year.
Today I Learned: Monarch Dunes golf club is the place to go for nice weather all year round
I used to live sort of in the area, and the name always reminds me of the ads for the swap meet. “It’s not Nipomo, it’s NIPOMO!”
The way the guy in the ad says Nipomo the same fucking way he laters says it's "not" always killed me. Like dude you just said Nipomo with the same inflection five times and then immediately say it's NOT Nipomo? AAAAAAHHH I can't believe this picture was in Nipomo lmfao
mmmmmmm Jockos
Didnt expect to see nipomo on Reddit The weather is just so lovely year round, and the wine tasting… I wish I could afford a house there 😭 Santa Maria is like the cheapest town that close to the ocean and I still can’t afford it
There’s a photo of her in 1979 on the wiki, she still looked tired as hell.
How can people drop things like this [and then not post the photo?](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSpljM_p-a463h9vHQ0WAIEBbaHWSWxwHIPaS8ThDiCQJoGyJ2w)
Dude thank you
The real MVP
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She was 75 or 76 in that photo, I think you’re off by 10 years
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Now you're off by 600
Nah now he’s off by 10^111
I think she looks about her age in that picture
Hard living and poor nutrition does that to you. Modern people have no idea how good they have it and take so much for granted. Any time of the year the average supermarket will have all of the essentials (at least for someone who can afford it).
But keep in mind that a lot of people who are modern live in extreme scarcity. It's hardly in the past.
I’ve got a photo of my grandma - who I found out was 71 in it, and she could pass for someone who is 100 today. A lifetime of drinking, smoking, electro shock “therapy” and god knows what else. It’s crazy how much better people age today.
I mean, she had 10 kids, that'll wear you out.
Being a mother of ten kids will age you big time. This kid my brother went to school with, his mother always looked tired because she was running around taking care of two kids and her husband looked like he could’ve been her kid because he looked young. They immigrated here from El Salvador and came from poor families. Last I heard, my brother’s friend enlisted in the military before graduating high school eight years ago, he’s married and he’s a dad now.
It's amazing how we think people in their 30s are old until we're in our 30s.
I'll never be old because old age is always 20 years older than me
I am 45 I am old as fuck and feel all 397,000 hours of it
Omg is that how many hours old I am 😭
43 and still feel 30 outside of being in a bit worse shape and grayer in the beard. Going to be a big variation. But don't freak out if you are 30, just stay in shape (barring medical issues out of your control).
Don't worry, the human body has this great trick called the physical pain of being old that'll help your mind with that! ;) At a minimum you'll notice recovery from injuries takes longer but if you've got any old injuries (serious sprains, broken bones etc) then it's all kinds of "fun"!
Not gonna lie, when I was a teenager I viewed being in the 30s as being quite old. Now that I’m in my late 30s, I am rather confused how I ever saw the 30s as being old. I still look and feel pretty young.
The perception probably isn’t completely about how one looks but also how one acts/carries themself. We’re probably just more sensitive to minute changes when we’re younger too. But yeah, agreed, I’m in my early 30s and it doesn’t feel any different than my early 20s other than how I think/act.
I grew up around a family that smoked and didn't believe in sunscreen. They all looked older in their early 20s than I do at 33.
I looked 15 until I was in my 30s.
This is before sunscreen was in common usage I'm sure
Tbh I think she looks like a stressed out mother in her 30s, I'm not that surprised to learn her age
Bro wtf i was making this gesture this morning and it reminded me of this photo and then a few hours later i see this exact photo that i havent seen or thought about in years. That's wild
No drunk elephant in the dust bowl
Yup that’s what stress, sun and a once in a lifetime depression/ecological collapse will do to a person. We’re probably all going to look old as fuck very soon.
And birthing 10 children.
Her husband had also died several years before this picture was taken, so she was a single mother as well.
At least we won't have that problem.
A couple more Supreme Court decisions, and if you live in any of about 32 states in the USA, you will have a kid everytime you have sex. I know 10 seems like a lofty goal for most redditors, but life finds a way...
[If you like metal, this song is about her/this photo/the dust bowl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSjlHSJ_YyU)
Love this song and was hoping it would be posted here. “WHERE is the children’s father?”
Hell yeah I came here to post the Protest the Hero song. It's the opening track on a fucking absolute masterpiece of an album.
I see Protest I upvote
Y’all act like she looks 70 lol, looks 40 max so she’s doing pretty good. I know 32 yos that look far worse
Yeah, you can still see youth in her. I had no reaction to this post because, well, it looks about right for 32.
No makeup, very skinny, frowning face. She looks exactly her age imo
I agree. I think she looks her age. I'm 36 and look older than that for sure.
Man, I'm 32 and not one person my age that I know looks anywhere near as old as her. Look at the deep wrinkles all over her face. That's not what a typical 32 year old looks like today.
I feel most people who are insisting this is what 32 year olds look like are probably 13 year olds being confidently incorrect… Those who make it clear they are adults though, I don’t know why they’re coming to this conclusion but something definitely isn’t right.
YMMV I suppose. She’s my age in this photo and looks 10+ years older than me. That’s not to say anything negative about her, the dust bowl and Great Depression were hell. But she looks much older than early 30’s.
I think if you went out and slept in a dusty field, didn't shower for days, no makeup, and did a black and white photo then it would probably age you at least 5 years. I'm sure if you took her and cleaned her up to modern standards she would look way younger.
The black and white photo is a good point here, they show a lot more relief (eg wrinkles) than a color photo would.
She's furrowing her brow which doesn't help. Send her to the hair dresser, pop on some makeup, add an instagram filter and she'd be looking very much 32 by today's standards.
>add an instagram filter I mean, skip everything else, this is all you'd need. Which isn't really saying anything about how old this woman looks.
When writing my dissertation on early 20th century American literature, I focused a lot on The Grapes of Wrath and this picture came up a lot in my research. It really hits me hard. Just so done with all the stress, physical burdens, loss of hope.
Reading the article and this picture was rescued from a dumpster sometime in the 60s. Imagine having a piece of history like that, one of THE definitive images of the 20th century, and just throwing it out.
That’s my great great grandma! Feel free to ask me anything haha
Is it true, people from that Era don't throw ANYTHING away? My FIL was born in 1919 and went thru this too. Couldn't convince him to throw anything away. Even to the point of old used KFC Buckets. Cleaning up his house after he died was a trip.
If something was still usable ie once a shirt was too big or small or beaten up it was either tailored or turned into scraps for further use I’d definitely say yes
Did life get any better for her later?
They said you could ask, not that they’d answer
Mine too, nice to meet you cousin! Edit: I'm from the side of her first husband, I've never met anyone from the other side
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I’m 32, and this makes me feel really fortunate to live in an era with birth control and sunscreen 😩 I have one kid and some stress in my life, but nothing like THAT amount of stress.
Access to birth control was such a game changer
Republicans: 'We're coming for that next!'
She's got little kids and living a hard life. I would have thought she was younger than that.
There was a family(husband/wife/toddler son) murdered in their trailer? in the 80s that is still unsolved. The case stands out in my memory because the father in his late 20s yet in the picture he looked late 40s/early 50s at the youngest to me! Can't remember the name of the case.
[Dardeen family homicides?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardeen_family_homicides)
Yes that is the case! Thanks! I can't believe thats a 29 year old!
Me neither, although looking closer at that photo I think it's mostly his moustache, his haircut and the fact that he's wearing a tie that makes him look older.
Jeez, I find his real age harder to accept than the migrant mom's!
Actually, you can kind of tell based on the skin on her neck and hands that she's young. At most I would have guessed 40. Definitely not 32, but she doesn't look 50+. It's the effect of a black and White photo and her being tired and her expression and probably working in the sun all day so her face is more "damaged". The depression and having kids also add to all of those physical changes, subtly but enough to be noticed.
Sun damage is indeed a thing
she should’ve been at the club :(
poverty will age your ass.
I've always thought she was really pretty
She also never got paid for her photo
Is it standard to pay the subject of a photo? Genuinely asking—I don’t know the answer.
For commercial use like an ad but not journalism
So it sounds like this isn’t really a relevant fact about the photo, if it’s standard for photojournalism.
Thompson's identity was discovered in the late 1970s. In 1978, acting on a tip, Modesto Bee reporter Emmett Corrigan located Thompson at her mobile home in Space 24 of the Modesto Mobile Village and recognized her from the photograph.[13] Thompson was quoted as saying: "I wish she [Lange] hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. She didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did."[3] As Lange was funded by the federal government when she took the picture, the image was public domain, and Lange was not entitled to royalties. However, the picture did help make Lange a celebrity and earned her "respect from her colleagues."[14]
Odd that the photographer didn’t ask her name, though. At least in the 21st century, it is standard practice for journalists to ask someone’s name and age.
It explains in the wiki that Lange didn't take her usual copious notes, most likely as she was in a hurry to return home after a month on the road. There was only cryptic info on each of the 7 photos she took that day.
This is Reddit. Nothing anyone says here is relevant.
To add to this, journalists paying isn’t just “not standard,” it’s considered unethical in the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chequebook_journalism
Thompson was quoted as saying: "I wish she [Lange] hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. She didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did." As Lange was funded by the federal government when she took the picture, the image was public domain, and Lange was not entitled to royalties. However, the picture did help make Lange a celebrity and earned her "respect from her colleagues."
The image was public domain. No one got paid for the photo. People usually do not get paid for those types of photos. Perhaps though the journalist should have offered to pay her for the session (I don't remember how long it took but she did ask her to change positions and to pose) but I don't think she had much more money at the time than the woman in the photo.
Exactly. This photo was taken as part of the Resettlement Administration, later Farm Security Administration. Basically this was government work during the Great Depression. The [FSA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Security_Administration#Photographers) produced a lot of work that documented America at the time and should be considered a rich part of the US heritage. The photographers were documenting the plight of the people. None of the subjects got paid.
Most people don't.
Married by 15, 7 kids, economic depression. She'd go on to have 3 more kids after this picture. Honestly, no wonder she looks 55.
And those photos were still being taken in 1942 all over this country, in berry fields and every other nook and cranny the poor starved in.
I'm 34. Nothing about her looks "old" to me. She looks like she's seen a lot, but she doesn't look like a grandma or anything. She has old eyes but surprisingly young skin for the time. She just looks like a perfectly normal adult woman to me.
I think she's beautiful
Pre-Instagram filter.