In her recent memoir, Hold Still, Sally Mann writes that Damaged Child was a seminal image in her Immediate Family series, describing it as her “first good family picture.”

She writes: “It was of Jessie’s face, swollen with hives from insect bites, to which she was especially sensitive . . . As soon as I printed it, I noticed its kinship with the familiar Dorothea Lange picture ‘Damaged Child, Shacktown.’ In both, the girls have a look of battered defiance. Just in case anyone would miss it, I made sure that the title drove the comparison home. As strange as it sounds, I found something comforting about this disturbing picture. Looking at the still-damp contact print, and then looking at Jessie, completely recovered and twirling around the house in her pink tutu, I realized the image inoculated me to a possible reality that I might not henceforth have to suffer” (pp. 111-14).