The Great Depression
Black Friday, 1929, depicting nervous investors milling around wall street soon after the market plummeted and investors lost millions. The shocked disbelief is characteristic of the beginning of the depression, as hundreds of thousands of people lost everything.
This 1932 political cartoon by a popular Chicago Tribune cartoonist, John McCutcheon, explains the dire situation of thousands of Americans who, despite saving and working hard, had lost everything in the crash.
White Angel Bread Line, taken by DorotheaLange in 1933 shows how quickly and thoroughly the Depression affected the population. The black and white coloring adds to the gaunt expression on the man's face so characteristic of the time.
This Federal image of Civilian Conservation Corps shows the young men unloading a food truck. Taken in 1933, it shows the CCC hard at work, a sort of beacon of hope to the many hopeless unemployed young men and their families.
"Migrant workers' camp, outskirts of Marysville, California". (Lange) Shows the filth and horrible conditions that people were reduced to living in as a result of the depression. Hoovervilles such as this one were not an uncommon sight.
This image of a drought stricken farmer in Oklahoma, taken by Dorothea Lange in 1934, depicts the desperation that the dust bowl brought upon tenant farmers in the West. Distressed families such as this one were characteristic of the mindset and identity in the West at the time.
Muscle Shoals hydropower plant in the Tennessee River Valley in 1935. Federal Picture. The TVA created cheap, clean power for the people in the surrounding area, a much needed resource as electricity monopolies pushed prices up. The dam also provided irrigation for the surrounding area, as well as contributing to flood control. TVA construction projects employed thousands and helped get the economy back on track, as well as planting seeds for future green power.
Daughter of migrant Tennessee coal miner, taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936, is a stark display of the hopeless and defeated mindset of so many impecunious workers and families at the time.
National Archives picture of a WPA mural in a San Francisco park. The Works Progress Administration, founded in 1935 by FDR, created over 9 million jobs employing not only laborers, but artists or all sorts as well in order to put money back into the economy. Many of the murals painted by these artists are still around today.
This print depicts a poignant scene of a family with five children migrating down a highway wasteland. Many families much like this one were forced to abandon homes and farms and move on. (Lange, 1936)
This Federal Archives image depicts black workers picking seeds out of pinecones. This type of work is typical of much of the reforestation and preservation efforts instituted by FDR not only to conserve the environment but also to create jobs and pay many Americans.
This Federal shot of educational radio project musicians planning scores demonstrates the effect that radio had on the depression. These men would have been payed by the government to write educational music as a part of FDR's recovery programs, and radio allowed for more public education and connection with the government.
"Ex-Slave with a long memory" (Lange,1937) shows a typical negro woman. Life was especially hard for the blacks during the depression, as they had to overcome massive social disadvantages as well as the striking poverty that ran rampant.
Lange took this landscape shot of Texas in 1938. It shows how desolate and ravaged the land was, and how hard life must have been for the thousands of farmers who tried to scrape some living out of the dry Earth.
"Big Pants, 1940" A Federal image of some CCC boys fooling around and having fun. This scene is a good example of how helpful the CCC was to these boys, allowing them to spend time with similar men, work hard, and make a decent sum of money. The Corps lifted at least some of the weight of the depression off the shoulders of these men and their families.