The Great Depression Photo Gallery
While the Great Depression was a time of tremendous poverty and suffering, it was also a period in which the arts flourished. Much of that art served to document the devastation of the Depression. The artists’ documentary spirit shines clearly through the photographs taken as part of the Historical Section of the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration.
The iconic photography used throughout the Great Depression Curriculum is available through the Library of Congress.
Tap a thumbnail image below.
Crowds huddle outside a bank where a run is taking place.
Workers pour concrete on a storage unit in Ogden, Utah.
FDR takes to the airwaves for a fireside chat.
A Civil Works Administration project focuses on malaria near Little Rock, Ark.
Drought takes a toll on a family in southeast Arkansas.
An unemployed man makes his plea to society.
Men wait in a bread line, hoping for food for their families.
An Oklahoma mother, 18, stranded in Imperial Valley, Ca.
A "for sale" sign stands alone on a desolate farm.
An unemployed man waits dejectedly.
A mom, her baby and her two older children struggle to survive by pea-picking.
A migrant worker gets back on the road, this time on a California highway.
Supplementary Photos & Art
- ThoughtCo: 20th Century History – Photographs of the Great Depression.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library Photos – Copyright-free photos.
- Library of Congress: “America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA – OWI, 1935-1945” – These are the famous photographs that you know (Dorothea Lange, etc.)
- Library of Congress: “Voices from the Dust Bowl” – Audio and photographs from the Library of Congress.
- Picturing the Century: The Great Depression and the New Deal – Online photos from a small collection at the National Archives and Records Administration.
- Works Progress Administration Posters at the Library of Congress
