By: HISTORY.com Editors

Great Depression History

New York, USA 1931. New Yorkers celebrated Christmas in 1931, with a city-wide solicitude for those touched by misfortune during the year. The Municipal Lodging House fed 10,000 persons, including about 100 women and the Police Glee Club and the Police BNew York, USA, 1931, New Yorkers celebrated Christmas in 1931, with a city-wide solicitude for those touched by misfortune during the year, The Municipal Lodging House fed 10,000 persons, including about 100 women and the Police Glee Club and the Police Band entertained them, Here a line of hungrey men waiting to enter the Municipal Lodging House on East 25th street (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Rolls Press/Popperfoto via Getty Images
Published: October 29, 2009Last Updated: October 15, 2025

The Great Depression was the worst economic crisis in modern history, lasting from 1929 until the beginning of World War II in 1939. The causes of the Great Depression included slowing consumer demand, mounting consumer debt, decreased industrial production and the rapid and reckless expansion of the U.S. stock market. When the stock market crashed in October 1929, it triggered a crisis in the international economy, which was linked via the gold standard. A rash of bank failures followed in 1930, and as the Dust Bowl increased the number of farm foreclosures, unemployment topped 20 percent by 1933. Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to stimulate the economy with a range of incentives including Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, but ultimately it took the manufacturing production increases of World War II to end the Great Depression.

What Caused the Great Depression?

Throughout the 1920s, the U.S. economy expanded rapidly, and the nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, a period dubbed “the Roaring Twenties.”

The stock market, centered at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City, was the scene of reckless speculation, where everyone from millionaire tycoons to cooks and janitors poured their savings into stocks. As a result, the stock market underwent rapid expansion, reaching its peak in August 1929.

Stock Market Crash of 1929

Black Thursday brings the roaring twenties to a screaming halt, ushering in a world-wide an economic depression.

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By then, production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stock prices much higher than their actual value. Additionally, wages at that time were low, consumer debt was proliferating, the agricultural sector of the economy was struggling due to drought and falling food prices and banks had an excess of large loans that could not be liquidated.

The American economy entered a mild recession during the summer of 1929, as consumer spending slowed and unsold goods began to pile up, which in turn slowed factory production. Nonetheless, stock prices continued to rise, and by the fall of that year had reached stratospheric levels that could not be justified by expected future earnings.

Stock Market Crash of 1929

On October 24, 1929, as nervous investors began selling overpriced shares en masse, the stock market crash that some had feared happened at last. A record 12.9 million shares were traded that day, known as “Black Thursday.”

Five days later, on October 29, or “Black Tuesday,” some 16 million shares were traded after another wave of panic swept Wall Street. Millions of shares ended up worthless, and those investors who had bought stocks “on margin” (with borrowed money) were wiped out completely.

As consumer confidence vanished in the wake of the stock market crash, the downturn in spending and investment led factories and other businesses to slow down production and begin firing their workers. For those who were lucky enough to remain employed, wages fell and buying power decreased.

Many Americans forced to buy on credit fell into debt, and the number of foreclosures and repossessions climbed steadily. The global adherence to the gold standard, which joined countries around the world in fixed currency exchange, helped spread economic woes from the United States throughout the world, especially in Europe.

How Did the Gold Standard Contribute to the Great Depression?

A number of complex factors helped to create the conditions necessary for the Great Depression—adherence to the gold standard was just one of those factors.

(Credit: KT Design/Science Photo Library)

A number of complex factors helped to create the conditions necessary for the Great Depression—adherence to the gold standard was just one of those factors.

By: Lindsey Konkel

Bank Runs and the Hoover Administration

Despite assurances from President Herbert Hoover and other leaders that the crisis would run its course, matters continued to get worse over the next three years. By 1930, 4 million Americans looking for work could not find it; that number had risen to 6 million in 1931.

Meanwhile, the country’s industrial production had dropped by half. Bread lines, soup kitchens and rising numbers of homeless people became more and more common in America’s towns and cities. Farmers couldn’t afford to harvest their crops and were forced to leave them rotting in the fields while people elsewhere starved. In 1930, severe droughts in the Southern Plains brought high winds and dust from Texas to Nebraska, killing people, livestock and crops. The “Dust Bowl” inspired a mass migration of people from farmland to cities in search of work.

In the fall of 1930, the first of four waves of banking panics began, as large numbers of investors lost confidence in the solvency of their banks and demanded deposits in cash, forcing banks to liquidate loans in order to supplement their insufficient cash reserves on hand.

Bank runs swept the United States again in the spring and fall of 1931 and the fall of 1932, and by early 1933, thousands of banks had closed their doors.

In the face of this dire situation, Hoover’s administration tried to support failing banks and other institutions with government loans; the idea was that the banks in turn would loan to businesses, which would be able to hire back their employees.

FDR and the Great Depression

Franklin D. Roosevelt's First Fireside Chat

The American people stood glued to their radios as Franklin D. Roosevelt conducted his first Fireside Chat.

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Hoover, a Republican who had formerly served as U.S. secretary of commerce, believed that government should not directly intervene in the economy and that it did not have the responsibility to create jobs or provide economic relief for its citizens.

In 1932, however, with the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression and some 15 million people unemployed, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won an overwhelming victory in the presidential election.

By Inauguration Day (March 4, 1933), every U.S. state had ordered all remaining banks to close at the end of the fourth wave of banking panics, and the U.S. Treasury didn’t have enough cash to pay all government workers. Nonetheless, FDR (as he was known) projected a calm energy and optimism, famously declaring, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Roosevelt took immediate action to address the country’s economic woes, first announcing a four-day “bank holiday” during which all banks would close so that Congress could pass reform legislation and reopen those banks determined to be sound. He also began addressing the public directly over the radio in a series of talks, and these so-called “fireside chats” went a long way toward restoring public confidence.

During Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office, his administration passed legislation that aimed to stabilize industrial and agricultural production, create jobs and stimulate recovery.

In addition, Roosevelt sought to reform the financial system, creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to protect depositors’ accounts and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market and prevent abuses of the kind that led to the 1929 crash.

The New Deal: A Road to Recovery

Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal

How did President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal get the American economy back on track?

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Among the programs and institutions of the New Deal that aided in recovery from the Great Depression was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which built dams and hydroelectric projects to control flooding and provide electric power to the impoverished Tennessee Valley region, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a permanent jobs program that employed 8.5 million people from 1935 to 1943.

When the Great Depression began, the United States was the only industrialized country in the world without some form of unemployment insurance or social security. In 1935, Congress passed the Social Security Act, which for the first time provided Americans with unemployment, disability and pensions for old age.

After showing early signs of recovery beginning in the spring of 1933, the economy continued to improve throughout the next three years, during which real GDP (adjusted for inflation) grew at an average rate of 9 percent per year.

A sharp recession hit in 1937, caused in part by the Federal Reserve’s decision to increase its requirements for money in reserve. Though the economy began improving again in 1938, this second severe contraction reversed many of the gains in production and employment and prolonged the effects of the Great Depression through the end of the decade.

Depression-era hardships fueled the rise of extremist political movements in various European countries, most notably that of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany. German aggression led war to break out in Europe in 1939, and the WPA turned its attention to strengthening the military infrastructure of the United States, even as the country maintained its neutrality.

African Americans in the Great Depression

One-fifth of all Americans receiving federal relief during the Great Depression were Black, most in the rural South. But farm and domestic work, two major sectors in which Black workers were employed, were not included in the 1935 Social Security Act, meaning there was no safety net in times of uncertainty. Rather than fire domestic help, private employers could simply pay them less without legal repercussions. And those relief programs for which African Americans were eligible on paper were rife with discrimination in practice since all relief programs were administered locally.

Despite these obstacles, Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet,” led by Mary McLeod Bethune, ensured nearly every New Deal agency had a Black advisor. The number of African Americans working in government tripled.

Women in the Great Depression

There was one group of Americans who actually gained jobs during the Great Depression: Women. From 1930 to 1940, the number of employed women in the United States rose 24 percent from 10.5 million to 13 million Though they’d been steadily entering the workforce for decades, the financial pressures of the Great Depression drove women to seek employment in ever greater numbers as male breadwinners lost their jobs. The 22 percent decline in marriage rates between 1929 and 1939 also created an increase in single women in search of employment.

Women during the Great Depression had a strong advocate in First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who lobbied her husband for more women in office, like Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman to ever hold a cabinet position.

Jobs available to women paid less but were more stable during the banking crisis: nursing, teaching and domestic work. They were supplanted by an increase in secretarial roles in FDR’s rapidly expanding government. But there was a catch: over 25 percent of the National Recovery Administration’s wage codes set lower wages for women, and jobs created under the WPA confined women to fields like sewing and nursing that paid less than roles reserved for men.

Married women faced an additional hurdle: By 1940, 26 states had placed restrictions known as marriage bars on their employment, as working wives were perceived as taking away jobs from able-bodied men—even if, in practice, they were occupying jobs men would not want and doing them for far less pay.

Great Depression Ends and World War II Begins

With Roosevelt’s decision to support Britain and France in the struggle against Germany and the other Axis Powers, defense manufacturing geared up, producing more and more private-sector jobs.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 led to America’s entry into World War II, and the nation’s factories went back into full production mode.

This expanding industrial production, as well as widespread conscription beginning in 1942, reduced the unemployment rate to below its pre-Depression level. The Great Depression had ended at last, and the United States turned its attention to the global conflict of World War II.

Photo Galleries

In the 1930s, Dorothea Lange photographed rural hardship for the FSA, noting such conditions forced many New Mexico farmers to leave.

Dorothea Lange/Farm Security Administration

Arthur Rothstein, an early FSA photographer, shot this 1936 image of a farmer and sons facing a dust storm in Oklahoma.

Arthur Rothstein/Farm Security Administration

Oklahoma dust bowl refugees reach San Fernando, California in their overloaded vehicle in this 1935 FSA photo by Lange.

Dorothea Lange/Farm Security Administration

In 1937, migrants picked carrots in California. Lange’s caption read, “Working 7 a.m. to noon, we earn about thirty-five cents.”

Dorothea Lange/Farm Security Administration

A Texas farmer told Lange he moved to California in 1935 after losing everything: “1927 made $7000... 1932 hit the road.”

Dorothea Lange/Farm Security Administration

A family of 22 set up camp alongside the highway in Bakersfield, California in 1935. The family told Lange they were without shelter, without water and were looking for work on cotton farms.

Dorothea Lange/Farm Security Administration

A pea picker’s makeshift home in Nipomo, California, 1936. Lange noted on the back of this photo, “The condition of these people warrant resettlement camps for migrant agricultural workers.”

Dorothea Lange/Farm Security Administration

Among Dorothea Lange’s most iconic photos was of this woman in Nipomo, California in 1936. As a mother of seven at age 32, she worked as a pea picker to support her family.

Dorothea Lange/Farm Security Administration

The family who lived in this make-shift home, photographed in Coachella Valley, California in 1935, picked dates on a farm.

Dorothea Lange/Farm Security Administration

Californians derided the newcomers as “hillbillies,” “fruit tramps” and other names, but “Okie”—a term applied to migrants regardless of what state they came from—was the one that seemed to stick.

Dorothea Lange/Farm Security Administration
Mule TeamA farmer and a mule team in a field near Tupelo, Mississippi. (Photo by Walker Evans/Getty Images)

From 1935–1944, FSA photographer Walker Evans documented rural poverty, including this farmer and mule team near Tupelo, Mississippi.

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Roadside Food StandBlack and white photograph of a roadside food stand that reads "George's Place", baskets with fruit in the foreground, by Walker Evans, American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression, Ponchatoula, Louisiana, 1936. From the New York Public Library. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).

Evans’ black-and-white collection holds about 175,000 negatives capturing everyday life in the Great Depression, like this food stand.

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Floyd BurroughsFloyd Burroughs, A Cotton Sharecropper, Hale County, Alabama, Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975), 1936, Gelatin silver print, 24.3 x 19.4 cm (9 9/16 x 7 5/8 in.) (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Evans’ 1936 portrait shows Floyd Burroughs, an Alabama sharecropper who gave half his crop and much of his earnings to his landlord.

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Alabama Tenant Farmer's Kitchen Near MoundvilleAlabama Tenant Farmer's Kitchen Near Moundville, Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975), 1936, Gelatin silver print, 21.7 x 24.1 cm (8 9/16 x 9 1/2 in.) (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

While working with writer James Agee, Evans photographed Southern sharecroppers for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a landmark book.

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Houses in Negro Quarter of TupeloHouses in Negro Quarter of Tupelo, Mississippi, Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975), 1936, Gelatin silver print, 18.3 x 23.3 cm (7 3/16 x 9 3/16 in.) (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Evans’ large-format photo of homes in Tupelo’s Black quarters reveals the harsh living conditions of African Americans during the Depression.

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Bud Fields with His Wife IvyBud Fields with His Wife Ivy, and His Daughter Ellen, Hale County, Alabama, Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975), 1936, Gelatin silver print, 19.4 x 24.4 cm (7 5/8 x 9 5/8 in.) (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

In 1936, Evans photographed Bud and Ivy Fields with their baby in Alabama, documenting their lives for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

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The Great DepressionThe wife of a sharecropper photographed during the Great Depression by Walker Evans at Hale County, Alabama, USA, circa 1936. (Photo by FotosearchGetty Images).

Allie Mae Burroughs, wife of sharecropper Floyd Burroughs, was photographed by Evans in their Hale County cabin during the Depression.

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A family on their porch during the American depression

Floyd Burroughs poses with his three children on their porch in Hale County, Alabama, 1936.

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Savannah Negro QuarterSavannah Negro Quarter, Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975), 1936, Gelatin silver print, 10.2 x 16.8 cm (4 1/16 x 6 5/8 in.) (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

People sit outside stores and on porches overlooking desolate streets in the African American quarters of Savannah, Georgia, in 1935.

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Sitting By The ShopA group of men outside a barber's shop in Vicksburg, Mississippi. (Photo by Walker Evans/Getty Images)

Walker Evans’ series of men in front of barber shops in Vicksburg, Mississippi—including this photo—is considered among his best work.

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SharecroppersBlack and white photograph of two mature African-American sharecroppers, a woman sitting in the foreground, a man sitting behind her, by Walker Evans, American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression, Pulaski County, Arkansas, 1935. From the New York Public Library. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).

Two African American sharecroppers, a woman and a man sitting behind her, pose for Walker Evans in Pulaski County, Arkansas, in 1935.

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Miners' HousesMiners' Houses, Vicinity Birmingham, Alabama, Walker Evans (American, 1903 - 1975), 1935, Gelatin silver print, 7.3 x 17.5 cm (2 7/8 x 6 7/8 in.) (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Evans’ photos of miners’ homes near Birmingham show modest comfort compared to Hale County sharecroppers, though many residents got aid too.

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Carpenter, Depression EraBlack and white photograph of a carpenter, holding his toolbox on his shoulder, smoking a pipe, by Walker Evans, American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression, as part of a fixed-term photographic campaign for the Resettlement Administration, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 1935. From the New York Public Library. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).

This monochrome photograph of a carpenter holding his toolbox on his shoulder was shot by Evans in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 1935.

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Main Street, Macon, GeorgiaBlack and white photograph of a Main Street, many cars parked along the street, people walking across the road, by Walker Evans, American photographer known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression, Macon, Georgia, 1936. From the New York Public Library. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).

Evans photographed this bustling scene on Main Street in Macon, Georgia in 1936.

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Group of People at Mealtime in Flood Refugee Camp, Forrest City, Arkansas, March 1936Group of People at Mealtime in Flood Refugee Camp, Forrest City, Arkansas, USA, Walker Evans for U.S. Resettlement Administration, March 1936. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

People line up for mealtime at a flood refugee camp in Forrest City, Arkansas, March 1936.

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Migrant Family Heading to Arkansas Delta for Work in Cotton Fields, with Flat Tire, Texas, USA, Dorothea Lange for Farm Security Administration, August 1936. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The New Deal’s FSA aided farmers hit by the Depression and Dust Bowl. Its photographers, like Lange, documented scenes such as this Texas migrant family.

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Negro field worker. Holtville, Imperial Valley, California. He has just made himself shoes out of that old tire by Dorothea Lange 1895-1965, dated 1935. (Photo by: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Lange’s empathy earned trust from her subjects, like this Holtville field worker who crafted shoes from an old tire.

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Children of Migrant Workers Fetching Water, American River Migrant Camp, San Joaquin Valley, California, USA, Dorothea Lange, Farm Security Administration, November 1936.

Children of migrant workers collect water at the American River Migrant Camp in San Joaquin Valley, California.

Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Migrant Mother by Dorothea LangeA poverty-stricken migrant mother (Florence Owens Thompson, 32) with three young children gazes off into the distance. This photograph, commissioned by the FSA, came to symbolize the Great Depression for many Americans.

Lange’s iconic 1936 photo “Migrant Mother,” featuring Florence Owens Thompson, became the enduring symbol of the Great Depression.

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Turpentine worker's family near Cordele, Alabama. Father's wages one dollar a day. This is the standard of living the turpentine trees support. Dorothea Lange, photographer. 1936. (Photo by: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Lange photographed this family of a turpentine worker near Cordele, Alabama. The father’s wages was $1 a day.

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Migrant workers during the great depression. dated 19350101Migrant workers during the great depression. by Dorothea Lange 1895-1965, dated 19350101 (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Lange photographed migrant workers with empathy, often chatting casually until they relaxed and resumed work, capturing authentic moments.

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The DepressionThe wife of a migratory labourer and mother of three in Texas during the Depression. (Photo by Dorothea Lange/Getty Images)

The wife of a migratory laborer and mother of three is captured by Lange’s lens in Texas.

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Migrants' Camp, CaliforniaBlack and white photograph of a woman holding an infant, walking in a wet, muddy camp, "titled "Migrants' Camp", by Dorothea Lange, American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration, California, 1935.

This photo shows a woman holding an infant, walking through a muddy migrants’ camp in California.

New York Public Library/Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Two Oklahoma Refugees, California, USA, Dorothea Lange, Farm Security Administration, February 1936. (Photo by: History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Children of drought refugees sit at the back of their family’s car as they arrive in California.

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A mother and her baby in California. (Photo by Dorothea Lange/Getty Images)

A Mexican-American mother and her baby photographed in June 1935 in California

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Drought Refugee from Polk, Missouri, Awaiting Opening of Orange Picking Season, Porterville, California, USA, Dorothea Lange for Farm Security Administration, November 1936. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A drought refugee from Missouri waits in Porterville, California for orange-picking season. Many Midwest migrants were seen as unwelcome outsiders.

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Dorothea Lange: teenage sharecropper in a field in Georgia, Usa in the Great Depression Era 1937. (Photo by: Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A teenage sharecropper works in a field in Georgia, circa 1937.

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Migrant shed worker. Northeast Florida by Dorothea Lange 1895-1965, dated 1936. (Photo by: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A migrant shed worker takes a break at his post in northeast Florida.

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Drought FarmersAugust 1936: Farmers in Oklahoma sitting in the shade while their crops burn in the fields during the Depression. (Photo by Dorothea Lange/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In August 1936, Oklahoma farmers rest in the shade. FSA photographers ultimately captured about 250,000 images documenting rural life.

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Rehabilitation Client, Madison County, Arkansas, USA, Arthur Rothstein, Farm Security Administration, August 1935. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Arthur Rothstein, the FSA’s first staff photographer, documented rural life for Congress. Here, he captures a woman spinning wool in Arkansas.

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Fruit Tramps from California.Photograph of Fruit Tramps from California, in the Yakima Valley, during the Great Depression. Photographed by Arthur Rothstein (1915-1985). Dated 1936. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

As Dust Bowl migrants moved west, many faced scorn as “Okies.” Rothstein’s photo of a Yakima Valley worker reflects his mission to reveal truth.

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Evicted Sharecroppers Along Highway 60, New Madrid County, Missouri, USA, Arthur Rothstein for Farm Security Administration, January 1939. (Photo by: GHI/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

This photo shows evicted sharecroppers camping along Highway 60 in New Madrid County, Missouri. In 1935, 50 percent of all white farmers and 77 percent of all Black farmers were sharecroppers.

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Arthur Rothstein photograph of a migrant female worker picking cranberries, Burlington County, New Jersey, 1938, during the American Great Depression

A migrant worker picks cranberries in Burlington County, New Jersey, 1938.

Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
African American Girl Posing in Log Cabin Window(Original Caption) The late Arthur Rothstein was a perceptive photographer who captured life in rural America of the 1930's with a journalistic style that helped raise national awareness. His photograph, Gee's Bend Alabama, 1938, combines photographic excellence with a clear statement on black life of the era. This photograph is part of the exhibit, Blacks in America: A Photographic Record.

Rothstein took this photo of an African American girl looking out the window of a log cabin in Gee’s Bend, Alabama in 1938.

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Mrs Dobson and some of her Children, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, USA, Arthur Rothstein, Farm Security Administration, October 1935. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Mrs. Dobson and some of her nine children, as captured by Rothstein in 1935 in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia.

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Man Spreading out Apples to Dry, Nicholson Hollow, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, USA, Arthur Rothstein for Farm Security Administration (FSA), October 1935. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

This man spread sliced apples on a roof to dry to later sell them. The photo was taken in Nicholson Hollow, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia.

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Optimistic Farmer in Drought Area, North Dakota, USA, Arthur Rothstein for Farm Security Administration (FSA), July 1936. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

As drought depleted crops, many in the midwest abandoned their farms to move west or into North Dakota’s urban cities. This North Dakota farmer remained optimistic, according to photographer Rothstein.

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Shadows on Tent, Quarter Circle U Ranch, Montana, USA, Arthur Rothstein, Farm Security Administration, June 1939. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Shadows of workers are seen through a tent at Quarter Circle U Ranch, Montana.

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Son of a Migrant Citrus Worker, Winter Haven, Florida, USA, Arthur Rothstein for U.S. Resettlement Administration, January 1937. (Photo by: GHI/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The son of a migrant citrus worker poses for Rothstein in Winter Haven, Florida.

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Chef Ringing Dinner Chime, Rimrock Camp in Central Oregon Land Development Project, Jefferson County, Oregon, USA, Arthur Rothstein for Farm Security Administration, June 1936. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A chef rings a dinner triangle at Rimrock Camp in Central Oregon Land Development Project, Jefferson County, Oregon.

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Cotton Pickers Having Cotton Weighed, Kaufman County, Texas, USA, Arthur Rothstein for Farm Security Administration (FSA), July 1936. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Cotton pickers weigh their cotton on a farm in Kaufman County, Texas.

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Family Whose Farm has been Optioned by Resettlement Administration, Oneida County, Idaho, USA, Arthur Rothstein for Farm Security Administration (FSA), May 1936. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A family whose farm was optioned by the FSA’s Resettlement Administration is shown on their porch in Oneida County, Idaho.

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Russ Nicholson Peeling Apples, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, USA, Arthur Rothstein, Farm Security Administration, October 1935. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Farmer Russ Nicholson peels potatoes, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia.

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A farmer cultivating corn with fertilizer on a horse drawn plow at the Wabash Farms, Loogootee, Indiana, June 1938. (Photo by Arthur Rothstein/Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

This June 1938 photo shows a farmer cultivating corn with fertilizer on a horse-drawn plow at the Wabash Farms, Indiana.

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Citation Information

Article title
Great Depression History
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
October 17, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
October 15, 2025
Original Published Date
October 29, 2009

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