Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn Research Paper

On May 26, 1895, Henry Nutzhorn, a lawyer, and Joan Lange, a soprano concert singer, had a child.[1] They named her Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn.[2] In 1902, at the age of seven, Dorothea contracted polio, leaving her right leg and foot weakened and giving her a limp. When Dorothea was twelve, her parents divorced and her father left the family. Dorothea, her mother, and her brother Martin moved in with Joan’s mother, Sophie. Sophie, along with all of Dorothea’s grandparents, had immigrated from Germany to the United States.

After the move, Dorothea’s mother took a job at the New York Public Library, where Dorothea liked to go after school to look at the pictures in the books. Dorothea did not do very well in school, and though she often skipped school, she managed to graduate from high school in 1914.[3] Once she was out of high school, her mother made her go to the New York Training School for Teachers. During her time there, Dorothea also took Clarence White’s photography classes at Columbia University and worked at a portrait studio owned by Arnold Genthe.[4]

In 1918, Dorothea left the New York Training School for Teachers and changed her last name to her mother’s maiden name, Lange.[5] She moved to San Francisco shortly after, opening her own portrait studio …show more content…
[8] One of the photographs she took before her work with the government was called White Angel Breadline. She took this in 1933 at the White Angel Jungle Soup kitchen, run by Lois Jordan. The soup kitchen was near Lange’s studio, so she could easily access the perfect picture-taking grounds for showing other people the hardships of the unemployed. White Angel Breadline depicts a large crowd in front of the soup kitchen, focusing on one man leaning on a rail with a cup or can in front of him. This picture is one of many that Lange took in the streets around her