9:00 a.m. Four Pupils Attend This Day. Baker County, Oregon
By the time Lange set out to Oregon in 1939, her style was shifting, nowhere will you find the unobtrusive camera sometimes associated with documentary photography. In 9:00 a.m. Four Pupils Attend This Day. Baker County, Oregon, one child looks back at Dorothea Lange, shyly, but full of curiosity. Out in rural Oregon a former mining county to be precise children were working in the fields at small family farms alongside their parents; at the same time, state funding for schools were facing cutbacks. The future and the past rest in this room, alongside curiosity and tenderness.
Schools in Baker County were, to say the least, basic. Standing on small ranches, these schools offered very little resources and often lacked curriculum, no lighting, a paltry collection of textbooks, minimal seating and even more minimal heating. Oftentimes, the duration of a school year was limited, and teachers were certified with only a high school education and one summer study.
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