She is a Tree of Life to Them

Consuelo Kanaga (1894-1978) was a US-American photographer and one of the pioneers among women in photography. She met Dorothea Lange in the early 1900s, Lange encouraged her to turn photography into a full-time career and introduced her to the photography community in San Francisco. 

In 1931, Consuelo Kanaga met an African-American man by the name of Eluard Luchell McDaniels. Kanaga employed McDaniels as a handyman and chauffeur. While Kanaga was McDaniels’s employer, the two struck up an unlikely friendship. Through discussion with McDaniels, Kanaga learned more about the racial injustices African Americans were continually forced to endure. Consuelo soon became a vocal advocate for the rights of African-Americans and other people of color.

Just shy of turning 40-years-old, Kanaga’s work as a photographer took on a whole new purpose. As a way to advocate for equal rights and equal treatment of African-Americans throughout the United States, Kanaga began to devote her photography career to capturing photos of African-Americans, their homes, and their culture. (via)

In 1950, Kanaga took the photograph of a mother with her two children in Maitland, Florida, where Kanaga was taking up residence in an artists's colony. In the agricultural swampland around Maitland, she took many photographs of Black field workers, among them this very one that later gained icon status. In Edward Steichen's 1955 exhibition "The Family of Man", it was paired ...

with a phrase from Proverbs 3:18—‘She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is everyone that retaineth her’—and has been known by that title ever since. For Steichen, the photograph represented an archetype of motherhood, and he often referred to it as one of his favorite images in the show. He wrote, ‘How completely this picture speaks . . . for itself! This woman has been drawing her children to her, protecting them, for thousands of years against hurt and discrimination’ (The New York Times Magazine, 29 April 1962, pp. 62-63). (via)

Kanaga continued photographing social causes and injustices in the next decades and became actively involved in civil rights. 

In her 60s and 70s at the time, she attended and photographed many demonstrations and marches throughout these years. At 69-years-old, Consuelo Kanaga was even arrested for her activism as she marched in the Walk for Peace in Albany, Georgia, during 1963. (via)

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photograph via, She is a Tree of Life to Them II: see