Street demonstration, San Francisco
Mount (1): 9 7/16 × 7 1/8 inches (23.97 × 18.1 cm)
Mount (2): 10 5/8 × 7 5/8 inches (26.99 × 19.37 cm)
Rotation 5. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 15 – July 9, 2009, no cat.
Dignity vs. Despair: Dorothea Lange and the Depression Era Photographers, 1933-1941. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 23 – November 26, 2017, no cat.
This image, taken during the 1934 Longshoremen’s Strike in San Francisco, depicts a police officer assigned by the city’s mayor to control picketers. The men are shown here protesting their dismal working conditions, which included unfair hiring practices and long hours. The strike, which lasted 83 days, resulted in the unionization of West Coast ports.
The onset of the Great Depression (1929–1939) prompted Dorothea Lange to photograph the social and economic tragedy she witnessed daily in the lives of people around her. Lange here demonstrates her mastery at distilling a complex situation into a powerful composition that conveys the sense of opposition, anger, and desperation that hung in the air during this time.
