Dorothea Lange's A Migratory Family, 1940

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Farm Security Administration Photographer Dorothea Lange took this photo of a migrant family just south of Chandler

The Dust Bowl, one of the most severe ecological disasters in United States’ history, hit the Great Plains in the 1930s. Many families from the Plains headed west, abandoning their homes in search of work. Thousands of drought refugees traveled through Arizona. Chandler’s cotton farms offered temporary work to migrant laborers, especially those from Texas who had previously worked in cotton fields. President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a number of New Deal programs in the 1930s and ‘40s to alleviate the strain on individuals. The Farm Security Administration (FSA), a division of the Department of Agriculture, aimed to assist migrant laborers, with the specific goal of combatting rural poverty and the effects of the Dust Bowl.

Photographer Dorothea Lange documented the work of the Farm Security Administration across the nation and visited Chandler in 1937, 1938, and 1940. Her iconic social documentary photography embodied the impact of the Great Depression on Americans, including those in Chandler. When she visited Chandler, she photographed migrant laborers, auto camps, and Chandler’s Farm Security Administration Housing.

In November 1940, Lange photographed a migratory family, including four children and their grandmother. Captioned “On Arizona Highway 87, south of Chandler,” these photos were most likely taken on today’s Arizona Avenue between Ocotillo Rd. and Chandler Heights Rd. Lange’s descriptions of the photos state that the family was previously from Texas where they picked cotton. They landed in Chandler living in a dilapidated trailer without running water or sanitation. The parents are not mentioned but were presumably working in the cotton fields while the grandmother tended the children.