Because of her Great Depression-era work with the Farm Security Administration, Dorothea Lange was already a noted documentary photographer by the time she joined the War Relocation Authority in 1941.
She was involved with documenting the forced relocation and internment of Americans of Japanese descent from early days after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which declared these citizens to be “resident enemy aliens”.
Her photographs at the Manzanar internment camp (at that time called a “concentration camp”) depict the early construction of the barracks, classrooms, and other facilities.
Her work is a moving testament to the human spirit in the face of great adversity and injustice.
National Archives
