Dorothea Lange

Her photograph of Florence Owens Thompson, a Cherokee woman sitting outside a pea-picker's camp with 3 of her 7 kids, became one of the most iconic images of the Great Depression.

At the time Lange captured "Migrant Mother" she was working for the Federal Government's Resettlement Administration, so the photo passed to the public domain. In 1998, the image became a 32-cent U.S. Postal Service stamp. This was quite unusual since daughters Katherine McIntosh and Norma Rydlewski (depicted) were alive at the time of printing.

While Florence never got any royalties for the image, three prints auctioned at Sotheby's and Christie's fetched around $700,000 combined.