After the stock market crashed in October 1929, the Great Depression soon followed — ushering in a period of widespread unemployment, homelessness, and destitution.
Public Domain Crowd at New York’s American Union Bank during the Great Depression.
Great Depression photos can rarely convey how the era was one of the darkest, most catastrophic times the United States has ever endured.
The decade-long depression “officially” began on October 29th, 1929, when the stock market crashed, causing the Gross Domestic Product to drop a whopping 15% worldwide. To put that into perspective, during the recession of the late 2000s, the world’s GDP dropped less than 1%.
It would take World War II and the reform efforts of a new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to pull the world out of a devastating economic hole left by a financial market in crisis — one which remains the largest worldwide financial crisis to date.
Eighty-three years ago today, Roosevelt entered the Oval Office as President of the United States. In the first 100 days of FDR’s presidency, Congress passed 15 major pieces of legislation to help implement “New Deal” programs that would stimulate employment and thus the economy.
But as the following Great Depression photos show, the road back to economic health would be long, and nothing short of agonizing:
What Was The Great Depression?
Public DomainCrowds protest the Bank of United States after its failure in 1931.
In late October 1929, prices of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange plummeted, culminating in what historians refer to as the "Great Crash."
In the agricultural sector, overproduction led to falling prices. In the commercial sector, low wages and cuts led to decreased production. When top investors realized that their investments were heading towards failure, they sold their shares, leading to widespread panic selling. On October 29, 1929, a day labeled "Black Tuesday," over $14 billion was lost.
The crash led to the largest financial crisis in United States history. Thousands found themselves without a job, and countless businesses and banks were out of business.
For the next ten years, Americans struggled through the worst economic hardship the country had ever seen. Unemployment, coupled with natural disasters like the Dust Bowl in the American Midwest, led to mass migration and homelessness across the country.
In big cities like New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C., men would line up at soup kitchens to collect food for themselves and their families.
Public DomainUnemployed men lined up outside a soup kitchen opened in Chicago during the Great Depression.
At the time of the Great Crash, Herbert Hoover was U.S. President. His inaction when it came to working on a political and economic solution to the Great Depression led to his defeat by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) in the 1932 presidential election. Unlike his predecessor, FDR proposed a solution to the Great Depression for the American public called the New Deal.
These series of reforms and policies aimed at stimulating the economy and regaining the confidence of the American public.
However, economic output remained low throughout the 1930s. Financial strife coupled with Prohibition, the legal prevention of making, selling, or transporting alcohol in the United States, led to a sharp increase in crime and gang violence.
One of the most notable gangsters of the era was Al Capone, a Chicago-based crime boss who boasted a net worth equivalent to $1.5 billion today. Others included crime couple Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger.
Because of the abhorrent conditions across the United States, many average-day Americans viewed these crime figures as folk heroes. And who could blame them when they lived in conditions like those of the Great Depression.
Great Depression Photos Reveal The Agonizing Conditions Across The United States
Public DomainA family living in a shanty town c. 1936.
In 1929, the unemployment rate in the United States was roughly 4%. By 1933, it had jumped to 25%.
"The causes of the Great Depression were many and varied, but the impact was visible across the country. By the time that FDR was inaugurated president on March 4, 1933, the banking system had collapsed, nearly 25% of the labor force was unemployed, and prices and productivity had fallen to 1/3 of their 1929 levels," the FDR Presidential Library explained.
The Great Depression affected all sectors of the economy. In urban areas, factories closed their doors to their starving workers. In West Virginia, mines went abandoned. Farmers whose crops had been destroyed by natural disasters foreclosed on their homes and set out west.
For families who couldn't find work, shantytowns like Hoovervilles were common places to set up temporary residences. Named after the president who many Americans viewed as a reason for their hardships, Hoovervilles were impromptu neighborhoods comprised of easily found materials.
"'Hoovervilles,' or shantytowns built of packing crates, abandoned cars, and other scraps, sprung up across the nation," the FDR Library explained.
Others, like the struggling farmers of the Great Plains, packed up and headed out west to California in search of a better life. This phenomenon led to tensions between California residents and migrants, a group often referred to by the derogatory term "Okie."
However, attempts to remedy the economic woes of the American public were the top priority for the FDR administration. In his New Deal, FDR created several new government agencies meant to tackle the country's most pressing issues.
One famous agency, called the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), hired young, unemployed men to work on public works projects across the country. In total, three million men participated in the CCC, creating bridges, fighting fires, building roads, and planting trees all while making a living to support themselves and their families back home.
Public DomainThe Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) constructing a drainage culvert c. 1933.
While the New Deal's enormous efforts certainly aided many Americans in a time of immense struggle, it wasn't until the onset of World War II that the country finally broke free from the Great Depression.
If you enjoyed these Great Depression photos, be sure to check out what child labor at the turn of the 20th century and haunting images of America's dust bowl
