Florence Owens Thompson - Rediscovering Migrant Mother

Rediscovering Migrant Mother

While the image was being prepared for exhibit in 1941, the negative of the famous photo was retouched to remove Florence's thumb in the lower-right corner of the image. In the late 1960s, Bill Hendrie found the original Migrant Mother photograph and 31 other vintage, untouched photos by Dorothea Lange in a dumpster at the San Jose Chamber of Commerce. After the death of Hendrie and his wife, their daughter, Marian Tankersley, rediscovered the photos while emptying her parents' San Jose home. In 1998, the retouched photo of Migrant Mother became a 32-cent U.S. Postal Service stamp in the 1930s Celebrate the Century series. The stamp printing was unusual since daughters Katherine McIntosh (on the left in the stamp) and Norma Rydlewski (in Thompson's arms in the stamp) were alive at the time of the printing and "It is very uncommon for the Postal Service to print stamps of individuals who have not been dead for at least 10 years."

In the same month the U.S. stamp was issued, a print of the photograph with Lange's handwritten notes and signature sold in 1998 for $244,500 at Sotheby's New York. In November 2002, Dorothea Lange's personal print of Migrant Mother sold at Christie's New York for $141,500. In October 2005, an anonymous buyer paid $296,000 at Sotheby's New York for the rediscovered 32 vintage, untouched Lange photos—nearly six times the pre-bid estimate.