January 23, 2009

Historian to talk about how photography can promote equality

Linda Gordon, the Florence Kelley Professor of History at New York University, will present the talk, which is sponsored by the Department of History and the Purdue chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Gordon also is a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar. The event is free and open to the public.

Gordon will discuss how photographer Dorothea Lange used documentary photography to challenge racial prejudice during the 1930s. Her Depression-era work, which was funded by the Farm Security Administration, highlighted rural poverty, as well as how migrant laborers were exploited. She also is well known for her photographs of Japanese Americans who were sent to interment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, (765) 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu

Sources: Nancy Gabin, associate professor of history, (765) 494-4141, ngabin@purdue.edu

Gordon Mork, professor of history, (765) 494-4138, gmork@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

To the News Service home page