Question 1

True or false: Dorothea Lange worked for the Farm Security Administration documenting rural poverty.

Accepted Answer

True. In 1935, Dorothea Lange joined the Resettlement Administration (later FSA) to photograph the plight of Dust Bowl migrants and rural poor. Her work helped raise awareness.

Question 2

True or false: Dorothea Lange contracted polio as a child, which left her with a permanent limp.

Accepted Answer

True. At age seven, polio weakened her right leg and caused a lifelong limp. She later said it gave her empathy for the marginalized.

Question 3

True or false: Dorothea Lange's photograph 'Migrant Mother' became an iconic image of the Great Depression.

Accepted Answer

True. Dorothea Lange took 'Migrant Mother' in 1936 while working for the Farm Security Administration. It is one of the most recognized photographs of the Depression era.

Question 4

True or false: Lange's first major commission was for Vogue magazine in New York City.

Accepted Answer

False. Lange's first major career step was opening her own portrait studio in San Francisco in 1919. She later achieved fame through documentary work for the Resettlement Administration, not a Vogue commission.

Question 5

True or false: Dorothea Lange photographed the Dust Bowl while traveling in a custom-built station wagon.

Accepted Answer

True. Lange traveled the Dust Bowl in a 1932 Ford station wagon rigged with a darkroom. She often slept in it during assignments.

Question 6

True or false: Dorothea Lange's famous 'Migrant Mother' photo was staged with paid actors.

Accepted Answer

False. The photo was candid, capturing Florence Owens Thompson and her children at a pea-pickers camp. Lange didn't pay or direct them.

Question 7

True or false: Dorothea Lange contracted polio at age seven, which left her with a permanent limp.

Accepted Answer

True. At age seven, Dorothea Lange contracted polio, causing a weakened right leg and a lifelong limp. This is a well-documented fact from her biography.

Question 8

True or false: Dorothea Lange photographed the forced internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Accepted Answer

True. During WWII, Dorothea Lange was hired by the War Relocation Authority to document the Japanese American internment. Her images captured the injustice and hardship.

Question 9

True or false: Dorothea Lange was born in San Francisco, California.

Accepted Answer

False. Dorothea Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on May 26, 1895. She moved to San Francisco as a young woman, but she was not born there.

Question 10

True or false: Dorothea Lange won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in 1941.

Accepted Answer

False. Dorothea Lange never won a Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer for Photography was first awarded in 1942, and Lange was never a recipient. Her legacy is via her FSA work.

Question 11

True or false: Dorothea Lange studied photography under Ansel Adams.

Accepted Answer

False. Dorothea Lange studied photography at Columbia University in New York but not under Ansel Adams. They were contemporaries and friends, but Adams was not her teacher.

Question 12

True or false: Dorothea Lange was the first woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship for photography.

Accepted Answer

False. Berenice Abbott received a Guggenheim Fellowship for photography in 1935, six years before Lange. Therefore, Abbott, not Lange, was the first woman to earn this honor.

Question 13

True or false: Lange destroyed all her negatives of Japanese American internment camps after World War II.

Accepted Answer

False. She didn't destroy them—the Army impounded most. Many were later rediscovered and released in the 2000s at the National Archives.

Question 14

True or false: Many of Dorothea Lange's photographs of Japanese American internment were impounded by the U.S. government.

Accepted Answer

True. The War Relocation Authority confiscated her photos because they showed the harsh reality of the camps, contradicting official propaganda.

Question 15

True or false: Dorothea Lange was a painter before becoming a photographer.

Accepted Answer

False. Dorothea Lange had no career as a painter. She pursued photography from a young age, working as an assistant and later opening her own portrait studio in San Francisco.

Question 16

True or false: Lange's photographs were used to help pass the Social Security Act in 1935.

Accepted Answer

False. Her work for the FSA influenced public opinion on rural poverty, but it wasn't directly used to pass Social Security—that bill passed earlier.

Dorothea Lange Trivia Questions