An iconic photograph shows a flood refugee family in Hall County, near Memphis, Texas, packed up with their earthly belongings and bound for the lower Rio Grande Valley to pick cotton after fleeing Arkansas. This May 1937 image was captured by the legendary Dorothea Lange, who was born on May 26, 1895, in Hoboken, New Jersey. Lange had contracted polio as a seven-year-old child, which left her with a permanent limp. She later credited her disability for giving her the deep empathy and patience required to blend into the background, allowing her to capture the raw dignity of displaced Americans without making them feel exploited.
Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain