Do You Know This Girl?

[Posted by Eve Epstein on August 6, 2008]

Dorothea Lange's photographs of people struggling during the Great Depression come down to us like ghosts from another time. But the youngest people in her photos may well still be alive today, and they can tell us the stories behind her black and white images of hard times.

Lange worked for the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s, documenting the lives of farmers searching for better land, and others caught up in the great displacements of that era.

For an upcoming show about Lange's work in the Pacific Northwest, we're interested in tracking down some of the folks in her photos. But since many came from families who were passing through Oregon and Washington, or who were not named in her notes, finding them is tricky.

So we're harnessing the power of the Think Out Loud web community. Do you know any of the people in the Library of Congress photos linked below? Are they relatives, or former neighbors, or people you heard about growing up? Do you know somebody who might have a lead?

Write us in the thread here, or email us at thinkoutloud (((at))) opb (((dot))) org if you have any information to pass along.

Some photos to get you started:

Chris Adolph, his wife, six of their eight children and his teams, Yakima Valley, Washington

Young mother, 25, says "Next year we'll be painted," near Klamath Falls, Oregon

The Arnold children and their mother on newly fenced and newly cleared land Michigan Hill, Thurston County, Western Washington

Photo credit: Library of Congress