Social documentary photographer Dorothea Lange travelled across western America during the Dust Bowl with her husband, progressive agricultural economist Paul Taylor. During her travels Lange captured a land on the brink of economic disaster, where everyday Americans struggled to survive. As in many of Lange’s portraits, this photograph is intentionally cropped tight on the subject’s face. By eliminating contextual information, such as the subject’s clothing or surrounding environment, Lange focuses solely on the broken and defeated soul of a man who has combated unfathomable challenges. The man’s age and ruggedness are clear from the rough lines and marks across his face,emphasizing the toll of migrant farm work. In this iconic photograph, Lange conveys that the hardships of the Depression were imprinted on the very faces of many Americans. The Great Depression of the 1930s coincided with spells of extreme heat, drought, and wind that devastated large swaths of formerly productive farm land, ultimately displacing more than half a million families. Dorothea Lange made the plight of the rural poor and of individuals caught in the “Dust Bowl” her central concern during this period. Hired as a part-time employee in 1935 by Roy Stryker, the director of the Resettlement Administration (renamed the Farm Security Administration in 1937), Lange documented the lives of migrant laborers in California and on the Southern Plains. Her photograph of a former tenant farmer in the Imperial Valley is representative of the emotionally resonant work she produced to publicize this government agency’s work.