The unemployment rate soared in the U.S. during the Great Depression (peaking at 25% in 1933), while wages for those who still had jobs fell sharply. Many people, employed and unemployed, fell behind on their rent or mortgage payments and lost their…

During the Great Depression an estimated 250,000 youths left home to search for work, to ease the burden on their families, to escape an abusive home life, or to find adventure. Opportunities for work were rare and never long-term, and most young…

This essay provides historical perspective on the social, political, and economic circumstances of the Great Depression. It suggests some ways the hard times of the 1930s affected young people and left their mark on them as adults.

One of the most enduring images of the Depression is a portrait of a woman and her children in a California migrant labor camp. Taken by FSA photographer Dorothea Lange, it was one of a series of six photographs that Lange shot on a rainy afternoon…

One of the most enduring images of the Depression is a portrait of a woman and her children in a California migrant labor camp. Taken by FSA photographer Dorothea Lange, it was one of a series of six photographs that Lange shot on a rainy afternoon…

One of the most enduring images of the Depression is a portrait of a woman and her children in a California migrant labor camp. Taken by FSA photographer Dorothea Lange, it was the last of a series of six photographs that Lange shot on a rainy…

African Americans were poor to begin with, but the Great Depression made their plight worse. They tended to work in industries most affected y the economic downturn, and in such dire circumstances white workers often took even the difficult,…

As the Great Depression dragged on for months, and then years, after the stock market crash of 1929, Americans grew increasingly hungry and desperate. Long lines outside soup kitchens and other private charities that distributed free or low cost food…

During the Great Depression, many young people left home to search for economic opportunity (and sometimes adventure) on the open roads of America. Jim Mitchell was a sophomore in high school when his father lost his job, sending the family into…

As the Great Depression dragged on through the 1930s, critics on the left blamed the Roosevelt Administration for not going far enough. They maintained that New Deal measures had mostly shored up banks and industries without sufficiently providing…