Winner of the 2010 Bancroft Prize and finalist for the 2009 Book Prize in Biography: The definitive biography of a heroic chronicler of America's Depression and one of the twentieth century's greatest photographers. We all know Dorothea Lange's iconic photosthe Migrant Mother holding her child, the shoeless children of the Dust Bowlbut now renowned American historian Linda Gordon brings them to three-dimensional life in this groundbreaking exploration of Lange's transformation into a documentarist. Using Lange's life to anchor a moving social history of twentieth-century America, Gordon masterfully re-creates bohemian San Francisco, the Depression, and the Japanese-American internment camps. Accompanied by more than one hundred imagesmany of them previously unseen and some formerly suppressedGordon has written a sparkling, fast-moving story that testifies to her status as one of the most gifted historians of our time. Finalist for the Book Prize; a Notable Book; New Yorker's A Year's Reading; and Best Book. 128 black-and-white photos