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The U.S. government paid Dorothea Lange to take photographs.

She's best known for her work with such federal programs as the Farm Security Administration, where she documented the painful economic and environmental crises of the 1930s and '40s across the American West. Across her body of work there are intimate glimpses of Great Depression bread lines, Japanese American internment camps during World War II and migrant farm workers - including the subject of perhaps her most famous portrait, Migrant Mother.

But she also took notes - lots and lots of notes, scribbling constantly as she worked: recording how her subjects spoke, what they were doing to get by, why their lives took shape as they did.

"I went out just absolutely in the blind staggering, as something to do," Lange herself said in interviews conducted over 1960 and '61 and preserved by the University of California, Berkeley's Oral History Center. "Well, I really kept to it."

Those notes helped inspire a retrospective of Lange's work at New York City's Museum of Modern Art, which opened in mid-February ... and promptly closed less than a month later because of a different kind of crisis, the coronavirus pandemic.

NOTE TO SELF: Possible title, 'To Hold This Soil' ... NOTE TO SELF: General Theme of Book, 'People left stranded by the outwash of industry in America' ... NOTE TO SELF: US-99: The Splendor & the Rest of It ... Note: young trees ... Note: poor man's canyon. A subject on the move ... NOTE TO SELF: Really do the work, Follow the whole travel, destination unknown.

"The installation views are there. The pictures are hanging in the dark," says Sarah Meister, the exhibition's curator. "And now it's like, 'OK, so then what?' "

So, Meister and her colleagues decided to relaunch the exhibition as a weeklong, entirely online experience - including views of the installation, a live Q&A and some added video and podcast segments. That project, which goes live Thursday, also offered an opportunity to reframe some of Lange's work in light of the tumult caused by the pandemic.

She points to one piece, in particular.

"Her photograph from 1938 about unemployment aid beginning. It's this line of men in hats standing very close together. It's just this very self-enclosed, sad, desperate plodding, hopeless kind of picture," she recalls.

The echoes with today's desperate unemployment landscape are inescapable. More than 30 million people - or 1 out of every 5 people who had a job in February - have filed for unemployment in the past six weeks alone, as the coronavirus and widespread lockdown efforts take their toll. The U.S. economy may see its sharpest economic downturn since Lange's own day, during the Great Depression.

But in a weird way, Meister adds, looking at Lange's work also offers a sense of solidarity across time: "You know, even a community of desperation is still a community."

Tess Taylor certainly feels that connection. The poet - and occasional NPR contributor - composed a book of poetry inspired by Lange's work, Last West, some of which was included in the MoMA exhibition. Taylor traveled throughout California, following some of Lange's own travels, and says something unmistakable still shines through the photographs.

"There's a restless desire to find a way to document the scope of this crisis - but also to make it feel human, and to capture it at a human scale," Taylor says.

That poses some difficult questions to Lange's viewers.

"What do we owe one another as a form of common dignity? How do we support one another? How is our well-being intimately welded to one another's well-being?" Taylor asks. "Those are her questions, and they're also questions that we are feeling very, very sharply right now."

She says the photographer keeps coming to mind as she looks around her neighborhood, not too far from where Lange lived in the San Francisco Bay area. And as Taylor sees the melancholy menagerie of signs hanging outside her local stores - "Closed, reopening shortly, we're gone now ... [and] one store that says, 'We'll be back tomorrow,' but it's had that sign up for six weeks" - Taylor often gets out her own notebook. Since the photographer's not here to do it, the poet is taking notes for her.

Taylor doesn't know what she will do with that list yet. Then again, rarely did Lange, when she was just starting a project. It was advice she offered to young photographers.

"Don't let that question stop you," Lange explained in those early 1960s interviews. "Ways often open that are unpredictable if you pursue it far enough."

In other words, just keep your eyes and your heart open. Your notebook, too.

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'A Community Of Desperation' Finding Sympathy And Solidarity In Dorothea Lange

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The U.S. government paid Dorothea Lange to take photographs. She's best known for her work with such federal programs as the Farm Security Administration, where she documented the painful economic and environmental crises of the 1930s and '40s across the American West.

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When drought struck Oklahoma in the 1930s, the author and her husband stayed behind to protect their 28-year-old farm. Her letters to a friend paint a picture of dire poverty, desiccated soil, and long days with no sunshine.

Editor's Note: For 28 years, Mrs. Caroline A. Henderson and her husband have been farming in Oklahoma. For the past five years, her household has been one of many that have fought as best they might the devastating effects, first of the unprecedented drought, and then of the resulting dust storms. Her letters, written to a friend in Maryland, open a vivid and pathetic chapter of American agriculture.
DEAR EVELYN: -

Your continued interest in our effort to 'tie a knot in the end of the rope and hang on' is most stimulating. Our recent transition from rain-soaked eastern Kansas with its green pastures, luxuriant foliage, abundance of flowers, and promise of a generous harvest, to the dust-covered desolation of No Man's Land was a difficult change to crowd into one short day's travel. Eleanor has laid aside the medical books for a time. Wearing our shade hats, with handkerchiefs tied over our faces and Vaseline in our nostrils, we have been trying to rescue our home from the accumulations of wind-blown dust which penetrates wherever air can go. It is an almost hopeless task, for there is rarely a day when at some time the dust clouds do not roll over. 'Visibility' approaches zero and everything is covered again with a silt-like deposit which may vary in depth from a film to actual ripples on the kitchen floor. I keep oiled cloths on the window sills and between the upper and lower sashes. They help just a little to retard or collect the dust. Some seal the windows with the gummed-paper strips used in wrapping parcels, but no method is fully effective. We buy what appears to be red cedar sawdust with oil added to use in sweeping our floors, and do our best to avoid inhaling the irritating dust.

In telling you of these conditions I realize that I expose myself to charges of disloyalty to this western region. A good Kansas friend suggests that we should imitate the Californian attitude toward earthquakes and keep to ourselves what we know about dust storms. Since the very limited rains of May in this section gave some slight ground for renewed hope, optimism has been the approved policy. Printed articles or statements by journalists, railroad officials, and secretaries of small-town Chambers of Commerce have heralded too enthusiastically the return of prosperity to the drought region. And in our part of the country that is the one durable basis for any prosperity whatever. There is nothing else to build upon. But you wished to know the truth, so I am telling you the actual situation, though I freely admit that the facts are themselves often contradictory and confusing.

Early in May, with no more grass or even weeds on our 640 acres than on your kitchen floor, and even the scanty remnants of dried grasses from last year cut off and blown away, we decided, like most of our neighbors, to ship our cattle to grass in the central part of the state. We sent 27 head, retaining here the heifers coming fresh this spring. The shipping charge on our part of the carload was $46. Pasture costs us $7.00 for a cow and calf for the season and $5.00 for a yearling. Whether this venture brings profit or loss depends on whether the cattle make satisfactory gains during the summer and whether prices remain reasonable or fall back to the level that most people would desire. We farmers here in the United States might as well recognize that we are a minority group, and that the prevailing interest of the nation as a whole is no longer agricultural. Hay for the horses and the heifers remaining here cost us $3 per ton, brought by truck from eastern Oklahoma.

The day after we shipped the cattle, the long drouth was temporarily broken by the first effective moisture in many months-about one and one-quarter inches in two or three gentle rains. All hope of a wheat crop had been abandoned by March or April.

Contrary to many published reports, a good many people had left this country either temporarily or permanently before any rains came. And they were not merely 'drifters,' as is frequently alleged. In May a friend in the southwestern county of Kansas voluntarily sent me a list of the people who had already left their immediate neighborhood or were packed up and ready to go. The list included 109 persons in 26 families, substantial people, most of whom had been in that locality over ten years, and some as long as forty years. In these families there had been two deaths from dust pneumonia. Others in the neighborhood were ill at that time. Fewer actual residents have left our neighborhood, but on a sixty mile trip yesterday to procure tract repairs we saw many pitiful reminder of broken hopes and apparently wasted effort. Little abandoned homes where people had drilled deep wells for the precious water, had set trees and vines built reservoirs, and fenced in gardens -vwith everything now walled in half buried by banks of drifted soil, - told a painful story of loss and disappointment. I grieved especially over one lonely plum thicket buried to the tips of the twigs, and a garden with fence closely built of boards for wit protection, now enclosing only a hillock of dust covered with the blue-flower bull nettles which no winds or sands discourage.

It might give you some notion of our great 'open spaces' if I tell you that on the sixty-mile trip, going by a state road over which our mail comes from the railroad, and coming back by Federal highway, we encountered on one car, and no other vehicles of an sort. And this was on Saturday, the farmers' marketing day!

The coming of the long-desired rain gave impetus to the Federal projects for erosion control. Plans were quickly made, submitted to groups of farmers in district gatherings, and put in operation without delay.

The proposition was that, in order to encourage the immediate listing abandoned wheat ground and other acreage so as to cut down wind erosion the Federal Government would contribute ten cents per acre toward the expense of fuel and oil for tractors feed for horses, if the farmers would agree to list not less than one fourth the acreage on contour lines. Surveys were made promptly for all farmers signing contracts for either contour listing or terracing. The latest report states that within the few weeks since the programme was begun in our county 299,986 acres have been ploughed or listed on these contour lines-that is, according to the lay of the land instead of on straight lines with right-angled turns as has been the usual custom.

The plan has been proposed and carried through here as a matter of public policy for the welfare of all without reproach or humiliation to anyone. It should be remembered that 1935 is the fourth successive year of drouth and crop failure through a great part of the high plains region, and the hopelessly low prices for the crop of 1931 gave no chance to build up reserves for future needs. If the severe critics of all who in any way join in government plans for the saving of homes and the restoration of farms to a productive basis could only understand how vital a human problem is here considered, possibly their censures might be less bitter and scornful.

At any rate the contour listing has been done over extensive areas. If rains come to carry forward the feed crops now just struggling up in the furrows, the value of the work can be appraised. The primary intention of the plan for contour listing is to distribute rainfall evenly over the fields and prevent its running off to one end of the field or down the road to some creek or drainage basin. It is hoped that the plan will indirectly tend to lessen wind erosion by promoting the growth of feed crops, restoration of humus to denuded surfaces, and some protection through standing stubbles and the natural coverage of weeds and unavoidable wastes. One great contributing cause of the terrible dust storms of the last two years has been the pitiful bareness of the fields resulting from the long drouth.

I am not wise enough to forecast the result. We have had two most welcome rains in June-three quarters of an inch and one-half inch. Normally these should have been of the utmost benefit, though they by no means guarantee an abundant feed crop from our now sprouting seeds as many editorial writers have decreed, and they do nothing toward restoring subsoil moisture. Actually the helpful effects of the rains have been for us and for other people largely destroyed by the drifting soil from abandoned, unworked lands around us. It fills the air and our eyes and noses and throats, and, worst of all, our furrows, where tender shoots are coming to the surface only to be buried by the smothering silt from the fields of rugged individualists who persist in their right to do nothing.

A fairly promising piece of barley has been destroyed for us by the merciless drift from the same field whose sands have practically buried the little mulberry hedge which has long sheltered our buildings from the north west winds. Large spaces in our pastures are entirely bare in spite of the rains. Most of the green color, where there is any grazing, is due to the pestilent Russian thistles rather than to grass. Our little locust grove which we cherished for so many years has become a small pile of fence posts. With trees and vines and flowers all around you, you can't imagine how I miss that little green shaded spot in the midst of the desert glare.

Naturally you will wonder why we stay where conditions are so extremely disheartening. Why not pick up and leave as so many others have done? It is a fair question, but a hard one to answer.

Recently I talked with a young university graduate of very superior attainments. He took the ground that in such a ease sentiment could and should be disregarded. He may be right. Yet I cannot act or feel or think as if the experiences of our twenty-seven years of life together had never been. And they are all bound up with the little corner to which we have given our continued and united efforts. To leave voluntarily to break all these closely knit ties for the sake of a possibly greater comfort elsewhere-seems like defaulting on our task. We may have to leave. We can't hold out indefinitely without some return from the land, some source of income, however small. But I think I can never go willingly or without pain that as yet seems unendurable.

There are also practical considerations that serve to hold us here, for the present. Our soil is excellent. We need only a little rain-less than in most places-to make it productive. No one who remembers the wheat crops of 1926, 1929, 1931, can possibly regard this as permanently submarginal land. The newer methods of farming suggest possibilities of better control of moisture in the future. Our entire equipment is adapted to the type of farming suitable for this country and would have to be replaced at great expense with the tools needed in some other locality. We have spent so much in trying to keep our land from blowing away that it looks foolish to walk off and leave it, when somewhat more favorable conditions seem now to 'cast their shadows before.' I scarcely need to tell you that there is no use in thinking of either renting or selling farm property here at present. It is just a place to stand on-if we can keep the taxes paid-and work and hope for a better day. We could realize nothing whatever from all our years of struggle with which to make a fresh start.

We long for the garden and little chickens, the trees and birds and wild flowers of the years gone by. Perhaps if we do our part these good things may return some day, for others if not for ourselves.

Will joins me in earnest hopes for your recovery. The dust has been particularly aggravating to his bronchial trouble, but he keeps working on. A great reddish-brown dust cloud is rising now from the southeast, so we must get out and do our night work before it arrives. Our thoughts go with you.

MY DEAR Evelyn: -

On this blistering Sunday afternoon, I am, like Alexander Selkirk,

Monarch of all I survey;
My right there is none to dispute.

There is no one within a mile and a half, and all day I've seen just one person pass by in an old stripped-down Ford.

Will and Eleanor went early this morning with a family of neighbors to visit the dinosaur pit in the next county to the westward-about seventy miles from here where the State University is engaged in excavating the bones of some of these ancient monsters, reminders of a time when there was plenty of water even in the Panhandle.

It seemed impossible for us all to leave home at once, so I stayed here to care for a new Shorthorn brother, to keep the chickens' pails filled with fresh water, to turn the cattle and horses in to water at noon, and to keep them from straying to the extremely poisonous drouth-stricken cane. We spent the better part of a night during the week trying to save two of the best young cows from the effects of the prussic acid which develops in the stunted sorghum. We thought they would die and I am not sure yet whether they recovered because of the liberal doses of melted lard and molasses or whether the poison was not quite strong enough to be fatal. It produces a paralysis of the respiratory system, and when death occurs, as it frequently does, it is due to suffocation from lack of oxygen.

Ever since your letter came, I have been thinking how different are the causes of our personal difficulties. It is hard for us prodigals in this far country, in our scarcity of all things, not to feel envious of the Del Mar Va pigs luxuriating in potatoes, peaches (and cream?), and the delicious Youngerberries. But, as I started to say, our own problems are of a quite different sort. We cannot complain of laziness on the part of our citizens. Oklahoma is one of the first states to get away from direct relief. Official reports of the administrators here emphasize the eagerness with which people accept any sort of work to help themselves and to make unnecessary the acceptance of public aid. In our county the FERA force is being cut down. Three case workers and two from the office force have been dismissed during the past week.

This progress toward more nearly normal conditions of employment occurs in the face of the most critical farm situation that we have ever encountered. For over a month we have had no rain, and the two light local showers early in July had only a slight and temporary effect. All hope of an adequate forage crop has now followed into oblivion the earlier hopes of wheat and maize production. We have no native or cultivated hay crops. The cattle stay alive thus far on weeds, but the pastures are destitute of grass. Many think it can never be restored. The heat is intense and the drying winds are practically continuous, with a real 'duster' occurring every few days to keep us humble. After the government erosion control project was carried through there was, for a time, a partial cessation of the dust blowing. But as the freshly upturned earth is pulverizing under the influence of continued heat and wind and entire lack of moisture, it too is ready to blow. A recently established Oklahoma law permits the County Commissioners to require the working of kind that is being allowed to blow to the detriment of other farms, and I note that one such order has recently been issued in our county.

You asked about the soil erosion control programme and what could be done with an allowance of ten cents per acre. That amount just about covers actual expense of fuel and oil for listing with a large tractor. Possibly it leaves a slight margin if listing is done with a lighter outfit. In no case was any allowance made for a man's labor or the use of his farming equipment. The plan was proposed to encourage widespread and practically simultaneous working of the blowing fields, with a reasonable proportion on contour lines, Undoubtedly it has been of great benefit, and had rains followed, as everyone hoped, we should feel that we were approaching the turn in the long road. As a matter of fact, the complete absence of rain has given us no chance to test the effectiveness of the contour listing. A few people signed up for terracing as a more permanent method of conserving and distributing the longed for moisture-if it ever comes! Will has been working early and late with one of the county terracing machines, laying up ridges on contour lines for every foot of fall. He hopes to be ready to-morrow to turn the machine over to a neighbor who will also make the experiment. Later on he would like to run the terrace lines across the pasture lands, but the future for us is most uncertain.

Everything now depends on whether a definite change of moisture conditions occurs in time for people to sow wheat for 1936. The 'suitcase farmers' that is, insurance agents, preachers, real-estate men, and so forth, from cities near or far-have bet thousands of dollars upon rain, or, in other words, have hired the preparation of large areas of land all around us which no longer represent the idea of homes at all, but just parts of a potential factory for the low-cost production of wheat if it rains. A short time ago a big tractor, working for one of these absentee farmers across the road from our home, accidentally hooked on to the cornerstone of the original survey and dragged it off up the road. All these many years that stone has marked the corner of our homestead. I have walked past it hundreds of times as I have taken the cows to their pasture or brought them home again. Always it has suggested the beauty of the untouched prairie as it was when the surveyors set the stone, the luxuriant thick turf of native grasses, - grama grass, buffalo, and curly mesquite, the pincushion cactuses, straw-color and rose, the other wild flowers which in their season fulfilled the thought of Shakespeare: -

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, Though to itself it only live and die.

The cornerstone has also suggested the preparation for human occupation-the little homes that were so hopefully established here, of which so very few remain. After twenty-nine years, eight places in our township, out of the possible 136 (excluding the two school sections), are still occupied by those who made the original homestead entry. And now the stone is gone and the manner of its removal seemed almost symbolic of the changes that appear inevitable.

We can't see why your wheat prices should be so hopelessly low. You may judge now a little of how we felt in 1931, with wheat at less than 'two bits' per bushel! The price here has recently been about a dollar a bushel, several cents above the Kansas City price. I suppose the idea is to discourage shipment, as there is not enough wheat in this area now to provide for fall sowing-if it rains-and seed wheat must be shipped in.

One morning at the store, being in a reckless mood, I invested a dime in five small tomatoes and wished you might be getting something like that price for your surplus. Potatoes cost us around thirty cents a peck. I hope the protest of the Maryland growers has been successful in giving them some return for their work. Peaches are priced at four pounds for a quarter, but are not for us. So count your mercies, lady. It may surprise you to see how numerous they are.

The last sack of flour cost $1.69, and twelve-ounce loaves of good bread are still to be had for a nickel, considerably less than the price we paid during the dear old days of reputed prosperity-before processing taxes were a subject for political debate and court consideration. We feel rather proud that the proprietor of the Elkhart flour mill which we have patronized for many years has withdrawn from the group of Kansas millers suing the government for recovery of the processing tax. He explained his position by stating that, as the benefits derived from these taxes had been an actual lifesaver for farming and general business interests in this section, he would not seek to embarrass the government in its attempt to collect the tax. His independent action in refusing to join in the raid seems worth mentioning in these days when individualism is supposed to be dead.

It's time to do the evening work, put the guinea pig to bed, and begin to watch for the return of our explorers. I do hope weather conditions are favoring the growth of your crops.

DEAR EVELYN: -

As I have said before, our own problems seem of slight moment as pared with yours. Yet more than ever of late 'the day's journey' has indeed seemed to 'fill the whole long day.' As yet there are no decisive changes, no clear light on our way. Late in the summer, before Eleanor returned to her work in the medical school, she drove the tractor for her father, and with the help of the old header they worried down the scattering, scanty crop of sorghum cane and Sudan grass which had made all the growth it could through the hot, dry summer. That there was anything at all to harvest we attribute to the new planting methods encouraged by the Soil Erosion Control service, of listing on contour lines and laying up terraces to check the run-off in whatever rains might come. A shower the night they finished cutting and another about ten days later, conserved in the same way, gave us most fortunately a second cutting over the same fields, and a few loads of maize fodder from spots here and there on another part of the farm. These crops of roughage have little or no market value, but are indispensable if one plans to winter any cattle. The old, nutritious native grasses which used to provide winter pasturage are forever gone. Killing frosts happily came later than usual. In October, I drove the tractor myself and we two cut and hauled and put into the barn loft (including the earlier cutting) some twenty tons of fodder from two hundred acres, expensive feed when regarded as the entire outcome of a year's work and investment, yet essential to our attempt at carrying on.

As you know, however, wisely or otherwisely, this region has permitted wheat growing to become its main concern. The wheat situation around us is so varied and precarious as to be most difficult of appraisal. Our own acreage is fairly typical of the general condition. We have a little wheat that came up in September, made a fair start, and for a time furnished pasturage for the small calves. A part of it was early smothered out by the drift from near-by fields. Part of it would yet respond to abundant moisture if that were to come. Much of the early sown wheat did not come up. Some of the seed sprouted and died before reaching the surface. Other portions remained dry until sprouted by a light rain in December. Most of that still lies dormant waiting for warmth to promote its growth. Large areas were drilled after the December rain, with varying results as to germination.

After the four-to-six-inch snow of early January, the editor of our county paper was asked by the United Press for a candid report of actual conditions. His estimate allowed the county as a whole a 5 per cent chance; not, if I understood him, a fair chance for a 25 per cent crop, but about one chance in four for anything at all. His statement showed that fall and winter precipitation so far had been a trifle over half the normal amount for that time of year. And you must try to remember that a failure this year would mean five in succession for a large part of the high plains region. So our great problem here is production, after all. You can readily see that the conditions I have so hastily outlined promise no protection against the ravages of dust storms if the spring winds rage as in previous years.

On the whole it is not surprising that here and there some bitterness should have been felt and expressed, perhaps immoderately, over the recent AAA decision in the Supreme Court. People here, business men as well as the farmers themselves, realize that the benefit payments under the AAA and the wage payments from Federal work projects are all that have saved a large territory here from abandonment. A December statement by the Soil Conservation service reports an area in five states, including part or all of sixty-eight counties and 87,900 square miles of territory, as in need of active measures for protection and control of the duststorm menace. Mr. Bennett, director of the service, regards this as the greatest 'physical problem facing the country to-day.' I was astonished to find by a little primary arithmetic that the area involved is equal to that of all the New England States, with New Jersey and Maryland and about half of Delaware added for good measure.

The desolation of the countryside would admittedly have meant the ruin of the small towns, entirely dependent as they are upon country patronage. It will also mean-if it must ever be abandoned through utter exhaustion of resources and sheer inability to hang on any longer-a creeping eastward into more settled and productive territory of the danger and losses originating in the arid wastelands. It is a problem now that no merely individual action can handle successfully.

But to return briefly to the Supreme Court decision. It has naturally been the cause of much regrettable confusion. It would probably have caused even more disturbance had there not been a background of hope that something may yet be done to compensate for the disappointments necessarily involved.

Farmers are not asking for special favors. They ask only an even chance as compared with other workers. But people don't understand.

Perhaps the many books on pioneer life with the usual successful and happy outcome have helped to give a wrong impression and perpetuate the idea that country people live on wild game and fish and fruits and in general on the free bounty of heaven. Many people have no idea of the cash expense of operating a farm to-day, or the work and planning required to the wheels going round, to say nothing of a decent living or suitable education for the children. This year we are keeping a separate account of expenses for car, truck, and tractor, all of which are old and frequently in need of repair. I fear we shall be horrified and discouraged by the close of the year. Not that I should willingly return to the long, slow trips of fifteen miles to town in a jolting wagon. Not that I want to take it out of the flesh and blood of horses in the hot heavy work of seed time and harvest-if they come again. But we can't combine the modern methods of work with the income of our early pioneering, when $200 used to cover all of a year's expense.

I think I told you of shipping our cattle to pasture. It proved to be a disastrous mistake. To keep in tune, I suppose we should blame Secretary Wallace or the broad-shouldered Mr. Tugwell, who likewise had nothing to do with it. Really the source of trouble was our own erroneous impression that grass is grass, and that our cattle would gain if they could have ample pasturage. Evidently other factors of acclimatization must be considered. Our experience was duplicated in that of many of our neighbors, most of whom, on finding their cattle in far worse condition in the fall than in the spring, decided to sell for whatever their stock would bring. Perhaps they were wise to do so. We shipped ours back, availing ourselves of the drouth rates for such shipments. In the spring we had paid 85 per cent of the regular rate. In the fall, to encourage reshipment and the restocking of the country if possible, the government rate was 15 per cent of the regular charge. I was quite alone here for a week while Will went after our little bunch. He had to unload them late at night ten miles from home.

That was November first, and most of our efforts and resources ever since have been devoted to trying to bring our cattle back to a normal condition. They are gaining slowly, but our homegrown feed is disappearing rapidly, and the grain feed of threshed maize which we must purchase, while about right in price for the seller at $1.10 per hundred, is piling up expenses. We have sold one mixed bunch of older cows and summer calves. That will help a little toward caring for the others, but there couldn't be much direct gain, as you will agree, in selling eleven head for $5. Still this is better than we could have done a year or two ago, when cattle were practically without value. In general, there has been an improvement in farm prices, both absolutely and relatively, which has given us courage to keep on working, and has kept alive our hope for some definite change in weather conditions that may once more make our acres fruitful and restore to us some sense of accomplishment.

At present this great southwestern plains region, most of which has been perseveringly tilled during the fall and winter so as to cut down the loss by wind erosion even if the wheat proves a disappointment, seems to be lying asleep like the princess in the fairy tale. Perhaps you can share with us the painful longing that soon the enchantment may be broken, that the deliverer may come with the soft footfalls of gentle rain and waken our homeland once more into gracious, generous life.

Perhaps it is a sin to parody anything as beautiful as Ulysses. Yet as we gray, lonely old people sit here by the fire to-night, planning for the year's work, my thoughts seem bound to fall into that pattern.

It may be that the dust will choke us down;
It may be we shall wake some happy morn
And look again on fields of waving grain.

So good night, dear friend, and a happier to-morrow.

DEAR EVELYN: -

Since I wrote to you, we have had several bad days of wind and dust. On the worst one recently, old sheets stretched over door and window openings, and sprayed with kerosene, quickly became black and helped a little to keep down the irritating dust in our living rooms. Nothing that you see or hear or read will be likely to exaggerate the physical discomfort or material losses due to these storms. Less emphasis is usually given to the mental effect, the confusion of mind resulting from the overthrow of all plans for improvement or normal farm work, and the difficulty of making other plans, even in a tentative way. To give just one specific example: the paint has been literally scoured from our buildings by the storms of this and previous years; we should by all means try to 'save the surface'; but who knows when we might safely undertake such a project? The pleasantest morning may be a prelude to an afternoon when the 'dust devils' all unite in one hideous onslaught. The combination of fresh paint with a real dust storm is not pleasing to contemplate.

The prospects for a wheat crop in 1936 still remain extremely doubtful. There has been no moisture of any kind since the light snow of early January. On a seventy-mile drive yesterday to arrange for hatchery chicks and to sell our week's cream and eggs, we saw more wheat that would still respond to immediate rainfall than I, with my stay-at-home habits, had expected to see. A few fields were refreshingly green and beautiful to look upon. There seems no doubt that improved methods of tillage and protection are already yielding some results in reducing wind erosion. But rain must come soon to encourage growth even on the best fields if there is to be any wheat harvest. Interspersed with the more hopeful areas are other tracts apparently abandoned to their fate. A field dotted thickly with shoulder-high hummocks of sand and soil bound together by the inevitable Russian thistles presents little encouragement to the most ardent conservationist. My own verdict in regard to plans for the reclaiming of such land would be, 'Too late.' Yet such fields are a menace to all the cultivated land or pasture ground around them and present a most difficult problem.

The two extremes I have just suggested-that is, the slight hope even yet for some production on carefully tilled fields, and the practically hopeless conditions on abandoned land are indicative of the two conflicting tendencies now evident through an extensive section of the high plains. On the one hand we note a disposition to recognize a mistake, to turn aside from the undertaking with the least possible loss and direct one's time and energy to some new purpose. On the other hand we observe that many seem determined to use even the hard experiences of the past, their own mistakes and other people's, as warning signals, pointing the way to changes of method and more persistent and effective effort right where they stand.

The first attitude may be illustrated by an incident of the past week, the attempt of former neighbors to sell the pipe from the well on their now deserted homestead. This may not seem significant to you. But to old-timers in this deep-water country, so nearly destitute of flowing streams, the virtual destruction of a well of our excellent, life-nourishing water comes close to being the unpardonable sin against future generations.

The same disintegrating tendency is shown in a larger and more alarming way by the extent to which land once owned and occupied by farm families is now passing into ownership of banks, mortgage companies, assurance societies, and investment partnerships or corporations. The legal notices published in our county paper for the past week include two notices of foreclosure proceedings and nine notices of sheriff's sales to satisfy judgments previously rendered. These eleven legal actions involve the ownership of 3520 acres of land, the equivalent of twenty-two quarter sections, the original homestead allotment in this territory. In only two cases apparently had the loan been made from one person to another. Four life insurance companies, one investment company, and one joint-stock land bank are included among the plaintiffs.

These forced sales take place just outside of the window of the assessor's office, and we were told that they have now become merely a matter of routine. No one tries to redeem the property in question; no one even makes a bid on it; in fact, no one appears but the sheriff and the lawyer representing the plaintiff.

I am not questioning the legal right of these companies to take over the title of the farms for their own security or that of the people whose money they have invested. In a sense their action in pressing their claims may hold some encouragement for the rest of us, since it suggests that they look in time for a return of value to the acres which at present no one seeks to rescue. In addition to the large amount of land now owned by these corporate interests, very many farms belong to nonresident individuals. The 'quarters' north and south of our own place are so held, while the one on the west has recently been taken over by an investment company. Unquestionably this remote control stands in the way of constructive efforts toward recovery.

Yet there are numerous evidences of the persevering restoration of which I have written. The big road maintainers keep the highways in excellent condition. New license tags are appearing on cars and trucks. Churches, schools, and basket-ball tournaments continue much as usual. One village church reported forty people in attendance on one of the darkest and most dangerous of the recent dusty Sundays. The state agricultural college for this section has an increased enrollment this year. More people are managing in some way-we hardly see how-to keep in touch with the world of news and markets, politics and entertainment, through radio service. A local implement agency recently sent out invitations to a tractor entertainment with free moving pictures of factory operation and the like. The five hundred free lunches prepared for the occasion proved insufficient for the assembled crowd. Within a few succeeding days the company took orders for three tractors ranging in price from around $1200 to $1500. Some people must still have faith in the future!

More impressive to me was the Saturday rush of activity at the small produce house where we did our marketing. Cars kept driving up and people coming in with pails or crates or cases of eggs. Cream was delivered in containers of all sorts and sizes, including one heavy aluminum cooker! Eggs were bringing fifteen cents per dozen and cream thirty cents a pound of tested butterfat. No large sums of money were involved. In many cases the payments were pitifully small, but every such sale represents hard work and economy and the struggle to keep going.

At the hatchery they spoke of slow business through the extremely cold weather. The young man in charge also referred to the changes or postponements in people's plans because of their failure to receive the expected payments under the now extinct allotment plan. With spring in the dusty air, however, and renewed hope the government contracts will late fulfilled, orders were coming in encouragingly.

We plan ourselves for four hundred baby Leghorns about the middle of April. That will be an increase for us, but is about the safest small investment we can make to yield an all-the-year-round return. We shall have to put quite a bit of work expense into the brooder house to keep out the dust, and the rain-if it ever comes. But we are happier to keep on trying.

This impressionistic account of conditions here and of our hope for the future would scarcely be complete without some mention of government assistance. We have had only slight contact with the Rehabilitation Service. We know that the man in charge here is taking his work seriously, trying to give definite aid and encouragement to those who have reached the end of their small resources and have lost hope and courage. He stopped he the other morning to see whether we really meant it when we promised the use of our tractor and other equipment to a young man in the neighborhood who is trying to make a new start for himself and wife and small daughter through a rehabilitation loan. In spite of seriously adverse conditions, this agent, who meets many people, spoke of a rather surprising general spirit of optimism. I suppose there is something of the gambler in all of us. We in instinctively feel that the longer we travel on a straight road, the nearer we must be coming to a turn. People here can't quite believe yet in a hopeless climatic change which would deprive them permanently of the gracious gift of rain.

To me the most interesting and forward-looking government undertaking in the dust bowl centres about the group of erosion control experiments scattered over a wide area. The Pony Creek project, fifteen miles east of our home, includes all of one congressional township and parts of three others, seventy square miles altogether, or something over 42,000 acres. This is a pretty seriously damaged area, principally devoted to wheat growing, and even now blowing badly. If the methods employed succeed in checking the drift and in restoring productivity, much will have been accomplished, both of intrinsic value and of use as a stimulating object lesson. We hope some day to drive over and see how they are progressing.

We talked about this work with the young man who helped us last summer to run our terrace lines. At present they are employing 140 men from WPA rolls who would otherwise be idle and in need of relief. The work is frankly experimental. It includes such activities as surveying contour lines, laying up terraces, cleaning out fence rows piled high with drifted soil, filling gullies to prevent washing in that longed-for time of heavy rainfall, cutting down dead trees and brush, digging holes for the resetting of trees in favorable locations, testing the adaptability of different types of grass to the difficult task of reseeding wind-blown spaces, and so on. Altogether it is just such work as a provident farmer would like to get done if he had the time and means. It is done without expense to the farmers who agree to cooperate in the plan. Our young friend smiled when I asked about 'regimentation.' The farmers do promise to maintain for five years, I believe, the terraces built for them and to follow a system of crop rotation. But plans for planting and cultivation are worked out for each place in individual conferences, to suit the farm and the farmer. Don't worry about the stifling of individuality. 'It can't be did,' as one of our preachers used to say. Of course no one can predict yet the result of these experiments, but they seem to me abundantly worth while.

Our personal plans like those of all the rest are entirely dependent on whether or not rain comes to save a little of our wheat, to give grass or even weeds for pasturage, to permit the growing of roughage for the winter, and provide some cover on the surface and promote the intertwining of rootlets in the soil to reduce wind damage. Our terraces are in good condition to distribute whatever moisture may come. We hope we have learned a little about protecting the soil which is the basis of our physical life. In the house the poinsettia and Christmas cactus are blooming a second time and the geraniums blossom in spite of the dust. Eleanor has just sent us budded hyacinth and daffodil bulbs in little moss-filled nests. They will help us to look forward for a time at least.
March 13, 1936
We must try to get this mailed tomorrow. It has been a terrible week, with one day of almost complete obscurity, and others when only a part of the sun's rays struggled through the gloom with a strange bluish luminance. On such days each little wave of the troubled water in the stock tank glitters with a blue phosphorescent light. When I dip out a pail of water to carry to the hen-house, it looks almost as if it were covered with a film of oil. On days like this, when William Vaughn Moody's expression 'dust to eat' suggests a literal danger, we can't help questioning whether the traits we would rather think of as courage and perseverance are not actually recklessness and inertia. Who shall say?

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secretaries of small-town chambers of commerce

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possibilities of better control of moisture

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When drought struck Oklahoma in the 1930s, the author and her husband stayed behind to protect their 28-year-old farm. Her letters to a friend paint a picture of dire poverty, desiccated soil, and long days with no sunshine. Editor's Note: For 28 years, Mrs. Caroline A.

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Lessons from the Dust Bowl w/ Ken Burns (Live YouTube Event)

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Song about the Dustbowl

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Dorothea Lange - Depression Era Photography

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Dorothea Lange - Depression Era Photography

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Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938

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Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938

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Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA). At the conclusion of the Slave Narrative project, a set of edited transcripts was assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. In 2000-2001, with major support from the Citigroup Foundation, the Library digitized the narratives from the microfilm edition and scanned from the originals 500 photographs, including more than 200 that had never been microfilmed or made publicly available. This online collection is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs divisions of the Library of Congress.

The Volumes

The published volumes containing edited slave narratives are arranged alphabetically by the state in which the interviews took place and thereunder by the surname of the informant. Administrative files for the project are bound at the beginning of Volume 1. These files detail the instructions and other information supplied to field workers as well as subjects of concern to state directors of the Federal Writers' Project.

Vol. 1

Vol. 2, Arkansas

Vol. 4, Georgia

Vol. 11, North Carolina

Vol. 14, South Carolina

Vol. 16, Texas

Historical Overview

In the Depression years between 1936 and 1938, the WPA Federal Writers' Project (FWP) sent out-of-work writers in seventeen states to interview ordinary people in order to write down their life stories. Initially, only four states involved in the project (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia) focused on collecting the stories of people who had once been held in slavery. John A. Lomax, the National Advisor on Folklore and Folkways for the FWP (and the curator of the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress), was extremely interested in the ex-slave material he received from these states. In 1937 he directed the remaining states involved in the project to carry out interviews with former slaves as well. Federal field workers were given instructions on what kinds of questions to ask their informants and how to capture their dialects, the result of which may sometimes be offensive to today's readers (see A Note on the Language of the Narratives). The field workers often visited the people they interviewed twice in order to gather as many recollections as possible. Sometimes they took photographs of informants and their houses. The interviewers then turned the narratives over to their state's FWP director for editing and eventual transfer to Washington, D.C. The administrative files accompanying the narratives detail the information supplied to field workers as well as subjects of concern to state directors of the FWP. For more information about the interviewers, the people interviewed, and the processes of collection and compilation, see Norman Yetman's essay which accompanies this online collection.

In 1939, the FWP lost its funding, and the states were ordered to send whatever manuscripts they had collected to Washington. Once most of the materials had arrived at the Library of Congress, Benjamin A. Botkin, the folklore editor of the FWP who later became head of the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress, undertook the remaining editing and indexing of the narratives and selected the photographs for inclusion. As noted above, he organized the narratives by state, and then alphabetically by name of informant within each state, collecting them in 1941 into seventeen bound volumes in thirty-three parts under the title Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves (Washington, D.C., 1941). The multivolume set and other project files, including some earlier unbound annotated versions of the narratives, are housed in the Manuscript Division and described in the finding aid for the records of the WPA.

Other records relating to the ex-slave project are among the FWP files at the National Archives and Records Administration (Record Group 69.5.5) and are described in the Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States, Vol. I. (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1995). Volumes 2-17 of The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, edited by George P. Rawick and others (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972-79), present these narratives with a slightly different organization; the later volumes of Rawick's series also include ex-slave interviews housed in other archives. Anthologies containing selections from the Library of Congress collection include the Federal Writers' Project's Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery, edited by B. A. Botkin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945) and Voices from Slavery (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), edited by Norman R. Yetman, author of An Introduction to the WPA Slave Narratives under the Articles and Essays tab. For additional works using these narratives as well as other slave narratives, please see the list of Related Resources.

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About this Collection | Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA).

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Zora Neale Hurston and the  Federal Writers' Project

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Zora Neale Hurston and the  Federal Writers' Project

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Zora Neale Hurston at Federal Writer's Project booth at New York Times Book Fair, 1937

NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: psnypl_scg_384

In 1933, the US government established the first of many New Deal projects and initiatives. Four years later, in September 1937, eir Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston was published in New York. The connection between the two? While many readers know of the novel's seminal status (it has been one of the most lauded-and banned-books of its time) and its foundation in Hurston's earlier research into African American culture and folklore, some might be unaware that from 1935-1937 Hurston was employed by the US Government as a chronicler of life histories in the state of Florida as part of a 'back to work' project for intellectuals and artists-the Federal Writers' Project.

This New Deal initiative "was created in 1935 as part of the United States Work Progress Administration (WPA) to provide employment for historians, teachers, writers, librarians, and other white-collar workers" (Library of Congress, Federal Writers' Project).

Originally, the writers were tasked with compiling information for state guides and other explicitly informational and didactic endeavors. However, what the project morphed into was one of the most comprehensive collections of life histories and primary source material on US folklore and slave narratives that exist.

For Hurston, the Federal Writers' Project allowed her to utilize her training as an anthropologist-she completed her BA in anthropology at New York's Barnard College under legendary anthropologist Franz Boas-and continue her work collecting African American folklore that formed the basis for her first publication, the nonfiction anthology Mules and Men. For the Federal Writers' Project, workers were dispatched throughout the states and tasked with collecting and transcribing the life stories and folklore of each state's diverse communities. In the state of Florida, where Hurston was stationed, these interviews included members of the African American, Arab American, Cuban American, Greek American, and Italian American communities. Specifically, it was these firsthand interviews with African Americans in Florida-many of them former slaves or the children of slaves-that inspired much of Hurston's most famous work, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

However, Hurston's novel is not the only body of literature to draw upon or be influenced by this New Deal project. For his award-winning nonfiction title, To Be a Slave (originally published in 1968), Julius Lester drew upon both primary and secondary sources to depict the experiences of slaves in the United States-and for much of his original source material, Lester drew upon the collected WPA Slave narratives.

In addition, other notable writers that worked for the Federal Writers Project include:

Richard Wright

Ralph Ellison

Saul Bellows

Studs Terkel

John Cheever

Harold Rosenburg

Conrad Aiken

Nelson Algren

Arna Bontemps

Edward Dahlberg

Anzia Yezierska

All told, the Federal Writers' Project created two large collections of primary source material: (1) American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 and (2) Born into Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938.

These two collections represent one of the largest publicly accessible, copyright free snapshots of life of American life and memories from the Reconstruction right up to and through the Great Depression.

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Zora Neale Hurston and the Depression-Era Federal Writers' Project | The New York Public Library

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You may know her as a novelist, but in the 30s Hurston was employed by the Federal Writers' Project as a chronicler of life histories.

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Info about the Federal Writer's Project (1935)

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Info about the Federal Writer's Project (1935)

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The Federal Writers' Project (FWP), developed in July and August of 1935, became one of the five programs of Federal Project Number One under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) [1]. The inspiration for the program came from a writing project that had been completed by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA): a Connecticut guide book that "proved so successful that the [writers' program] was expanded to national proportions by the WPA" [2].

The FWP provided work and paychecks "for some 6,686 writers, editors, art critics, researchers, and historians" [3]. These workers produced more than 1,700 publications, including full-length books, magazine articles, local histories, folklore, health pamphlets, science books for children, oral histories from former slaves [4]. The FWP's best remembered accomplishment was the creation of guide books for all 48 states, plus the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) and the territories of Alaska and Puerto Rico. The guide books contain histories, places of interest, touring information, and maps. The FWP also created guidebooks for several cities, including New York and San Francisco. These "WPA Guides" have been reprinted many times [5].

While the FWP was frequently criticized by conservatives for being left-leaning, populated with communist sympathizers, and a boondoggle, it was fiercely defended by others. One such was poet and author W.H. Auden, who claimed that the FWP was "one of the noblest and most absurd undertakings ever attempted by a state" [6]. Another was the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, who wrote: "It gives me much pleasure to sponsor 'A Guide to the United States Naval Academy.' This book fills a long felt want in providing the public with authentic information and attractive pictures of the Academy. I feel that its publication at this time is most fortunate" [7]. Many of the FWP's writers went on to successful careers and much of its work is still being utilized by researchers today.

When Congress terminated Federal Project Number One in 1939, the Federal Writers' Project was renamed the Federal Writers' Program and had to seek local sponsors willing to contribute funds towards the continuation of the program. They did, and the FWP lasted for the remainder of the WPA's existence (until 1943) [8].

Henry Alsberg directed the FWP while it was part of Federal Project Number One. With the dissolution of the latter, John D. Newsom became the new director [9].

Sources: (1) See, e.g., "Federal Writers' Project (FWP)," Roosevelt Institute, http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/federal-writers-project-fwp, accessed May 29, 2015. (2) Federal Works Agency, Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946, p. 65. (3) Sheila D. Collins and Naomi Rosenblum, "The Democratization of Culture." In Sheila D. Collins and Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg (ed.), When Government Helped: Learning from the Successes and Failures of the New Deal, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 212. (4) See, e.g., Evan K. Powell, WPA Writers' Publications: A complete bibliographic check list and price guide of items, major and minor, of the Federal Writers' Project and Program, self-published, circa. 1976 (Mr. Powell was a book collector and dealer in Palm Beach, Florida, whose work contributed to the WPA book collection at the Broward County Library's Bienes Museum of the Modern Book - see, http://www.broward.org/library/bienes/lii10202.htm). (5) For a list of the state guides, see "The American Guide Series," United States Senate, http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/WPAStateGuides.pdf, accessed May 29, 2015. (6) "The Federal Writers' Project," Indiana University Libraries, http://www.indiana.edu/~libsalc/newdeal/FWP.html, accessed May 29, 2015. (7) Work Projects Administration, A Guide to the United States Naval Academy, New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1941, p. 6. (8) Nick Taylor, American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA; When FDR Put the Nation to Work, New York: Bantam Books, 2008 (p. 437, 2009 paperback edition), and "WPA Federal Writers' Project in Minnesota, 1935-1943," MNOPEDIA, Minnesota Historical Society, http://www.mnopedia.org/thing/wpa-federal-writers-project-minnesota-1935-1943, accessed May 29, 2015. (9) See Taylor, note 8.

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Federal Writers' Project (FWP) (1935) - Living New Deal

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(renamed WPA Writers' Program, 1939) The Federal Writers' Project (FWP), developed in July and August of 1935, became one of the five programs of Federal Project Number One under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) [1]. The inspiration for the program... read more

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from Biography Online

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The Great Depression was a period of economic contraction between 1929 and the start of the Second World War. The trigger for the Great Depression was the Wall Street Crash of October 1929; this led to a collapse in confidence, bank losses and an unprecedented fall in output, spending and a rise in unemployment. The crash originated in the US, but soon spread to all major economies. The economic disaster and mass unemployment caused political upheaval across the globe. Most notably, the Great Depression was an important factor in the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party in Germany. In the US, Roosevelt's New Deal began to minimise the effects of the depression, but many people continued to experience economic and social hardship.
People of the Great Depression Herbert Hoover (1874 - 1964) Hoover served as President from 1929 to 1933. He had the misfortune to witness the start of the Great Depression in the first year of his presidency. However, as output fell and unemployment rose, he appeared unsure of what, if anything he could do to rectify the situation. He raised taxes and reluctantly approved the Smoot-Hawley tariffs - both policies reduced spending and trade, exacerbating the initial downturn. Illustrating Hoover's unpopularity and blame for the Great Depression the shanty towns of unemployed which sprang up during the Great Depression were termed 'Hoovervilles.'
Franklin D Roosevelt (1882-1945) Roosevelt was elected the US President in 1932 with a promise to do something about the economic impact of the Great Depression. He expanded the role of the Federal Government and increased spending on public works to try and provide unemployment. His 'fireside chats' on the radio offered a glimmer of hope and stability to a nation shocked by the extent of the economic downturn.

John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946) Keynes was one of the most influential economists of the Twentieth Century. The Great Depression left classical economists stumped as faith in free markets appeared to be misplaced. Keynes saw the Great Depression as a trigger to create a new way of economic thinking. Keynes advocated government intervention to kickstart economies in a slump. He was mostly ignored in the 1930s, but his General Theory (1936) laid the foundations of Keynesian economics and a new branch of macroeconomics.

(1899 - 1992) Austrian / British economist, LSE and Chicago University. Along with Ludwig Von Mises, Hayek took an opposite view to Keynes arguing that government intervention in the economy only aggravated the problem. The Austrian school of economics advocated a 'liquidationist' approach - allowing banks to fail and allowing markets to correct themselves. Milton Friedman was later critical of this 'do nothing' approach.

Irving Fisher (1867 - 1947) American neo-classical economist. Fisher worked on a model of debt deflation for explaining the great depression and the bursting of a credit bubble. Fisher was one of the first 'celebrity' economists. However, his reputation suffered from his misplaced prediction that the stock market had reached a 'permanently high plateau' - just before the Wall Street Crash.

(1855 - 1937) US Secretary of the Treasury 1921-31. Mellon was a key figure in the US economy during the 1920s. He reformed the tax system, cutting income and corporation tax and seeking to reduce the federal debt. His policies were a factor in the 1920s boom. After the crash of 1929, his measures to halt the Great Depression were ineffective and only exacerbated the economic downturn.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) Wife and political aide of American president F.D.Roosevelt. Roosevelt was an active First Lady, giving speeches, writing a column and meeting with the unemployed. She helped to reassure workers that the Roosevelt administration was committed to trying to solve their plight. In 1933, she defused a situation with the Bonus Army - a situation Hoover had responded to by sending in the army. Roosevelt was also sympathetic to civil rights for African-Americans and other minorities.

Charles Coughlin (1891-1979) A Catholic Priest who was an influential figure in American media. His radio broadcasts were widely listened to. Initially, he supported Roosevelt's New Deal, but during the 1930s became increasingly polemic - criticising Roosevelt's links to big business. He was fiercely anti-communist and increasingly supportive of nationalism - expressing sympathy for aspects of Hitler and Mussolini. His perceived anti-semitism and sympathy for extreme nationalism caused national broadcasters to drop him, but he continued with a self-funding radio station. His strident tone was a forerunner of later 'radio shock jocks.'

(1893 - 1935) Long was a firebrand, populist senator from Louisville. He was one of the few senators to criticise Roosevelt's New Deal for being too conservative. Long wanted a new policy called "Share our wealth" to limit the wealth of individuals and share among the poor to deal with the effects of the Great Depression. An outspoken character, Long was effective in increasing state spending on education, healthcare and raising rates of voter registration through eliminating the Poll tax. He was assassinated in 1935.

Fritz Julius Kuhn. (1896 - 1951) American German who led the German-American Bund party. He expressed support for Hitler and on an anti-semitic, anticommunist, nationalist platform sought to attract followers in a similar style to Hitler. His outreach peaked in 1939 when he attracted 20,000 people to a rally in Madison Square, New York. However, his rallies attracted violent protests, and he was investigated for tax fraud. Later exiled to Germany, he died in a German prison shortly after the end of the Second World War.

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer who captured the social change experienced in the US around the time of the Great Depression. Famous works include Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952). These books captured the grim economic realities of the Great Depression and vividly captured the harsh economic realities faced by low-income workers.

(1895 - 1965) Lange was a documentary photographer who is best known for her work during the Great Depression to document the effects on workers and the unemployed. Working for the FSA, she documented the plight of migrant workers. Her photos, such as her iconic 1936 photo 'migrant mother' was widely publicised and had a significant effect on public opinion.

Babe Ruth (1895-1948) In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Babe Ruth, was at the height of his powers. He transformed the sport of baseball (struggling from the Black Sox scandal), and set numerous baseball records for big hitting. His sporting prowess and cheerful character gave hope to millions of fans during the Great Depression.

Katharine Hepburn (1907 - 2003) American actress. Hepburn starred in many films including The African Queen (1951) The Rainmaker (1956) and On Golden Pond (1981) and won multiple Academy Awards for her roles. Hepburn's independence of mind and assertiveness helped redefine women's roles in Hollywood and post-war America.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan. "Famous People of the Great Depression" Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net, 25th July 2018. Last updated 28 October 2019.
Related Related periods
Roaring Twenties - 'Jazz Era' (1920-1929) The Roaring Twenties was a period of economic expansion and social change. New styles of music, dance and dress. Including Calvin Coolidge, Louis Armstrong, Al Capone and Coco Chanel.

Inter-war era (1918 to 1939) A period of peace in between the two world wars. Characterised by an economic boom and bust, and the growth of polarising ideologies. Includes; Hitler, Churchill, Gandhi, Roosevelt and Mussolini.

People of the Twentieth Century (1901-2000) Famous people of the turbulent century. Including Lenin, Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt and Thatcher.

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The Great Depression was a period of economic contraction between 1929 and the start of the Second World War. The trigger for the Great Depression was the Wall Street Crash of October 1929; this led to a collapse in confidence, bank losses and an unprecedented fall in output, spending and a rise in unemployment.

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Science, Tech and Inventions of the Great Depression Era 

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Science, Tech and Inventions of the Great Depression Era 

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Science, Tech and Inventions of the Great Depression Era

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Conclusion The scientific discoveries, technological advances and inventions of the great depression era opened the door for the creation of the everyday devices we use today. Try to imagine a world without computers, cell phones or chocolate chip cookies!!! The Digital Computer

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from Uncovering America

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Is making art a form of work? Make your argument for why or why not. Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated that art in America has never been the sole province of a select group or class of people. Do you agree or disagree? Define what you think Roosevelt meant by "the democratic spirit." How do you think art can represent democratic values?
The Great Depression spanned the years 1929 to about 1939, a period of economic crisis in the United States and around the world. High stock prices out of sync with production and consumer demand for goods caused a market bubble that burst on October 24, 1929, the famous "Black Thursday" stock market crash. The severity of the market contraction affected Americans across the country. The most visible effects included widespread unemployment, homelessness, and a marked decrease in Americans' standard of living. In addition, a severe drought produced the Dust Bowl-a series of damaging dust storms. This environmental disaster ruined many farmers during a period when the economy was largely agricultural.

In office at the time of the crash, President Herbert Hoover (term 1929-1933) was unable to stop the free fall of the American economy. His successor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was elected president in a landslide in 1933 with campaign promises to fix the economy. Roosevelt acted quickly to create jobs and stimulate the economy through the creation of what he called "a New Deal for the forgotten man"-a program for people without resources to support themselves or their families. The New Deal was formalized as the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), an umbrella agency for the many programs created to help Americans during the Depression, including infrastructure projects, jobs programs, and social services.

Through the WPA, artists also participated in government employment programs in every state and county in the nation. In 1935, Roosevelt created the Federal Art Project (FAP) as the agency that would administer artist employment projects, federal art commissions, and community art centers. Roosevelt saw the arts and access to them as fundamental to American life and democracy. He believed the arts fostered resilience and pride in American culture and history. The art created under the WPA offers a unique snapshot of the country, its people, and art practices of the period. There were no government-mandated requirements about the subject of the art or its style. The expectation was that the art would relate to the times, reflect the place in which it was created, and be accessible to a broad public.

Artists working in the FAP and for other WPA agencies created prints, easel paintings, drawings, and photographs. Public murals were painted for display in post offices, schools, airports, housing developments, and other government buildings. Community art centers hosted exhibitions of work made by artists employed in government programs and offered hands-on workshops, led by artists, for everyone. Illustrators made detailed drawings that cataloged the physical culture and artifacts of American daily life-clothing, tools, household items. The WPA intentionally seeded arts programs and supported artists outside of urban centers. In so doing, it introduced the arts to a much more diverse swath of Americans, many of whom had previously never seen an original painting or work of art, had not met a professional artist, nor experimented with art making.

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Is making art a form of work? Make your argument for why or why not. Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated that art in America has never been the sole province of a select group or class of people. Do you agree or disagree? Define what you think Roosevelt meant by "the democratic spirit."

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"When I was young
I wanted to be just like him.
One of the charm, of a bright orange smile
and muscular laughter.
Bold brown eyes flashing fearless
when he sat not alone
on cold blue nights
in empty boxcars.

Riding a freight train's
solitary wail
away from Nebraska
Depression, accompanying dreams
withered farms.
Nothing left but the
leaves of possibilities."
― Larsen Bowker

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"When I was young I wanted to be just like him.One of the charm, of a bright orange smileand muscular laughter.Bold brown eyes flashing fearlesswhen he sat not alone on cold blue nights in empty boxcars. Riding a freight train'ssolitary wailaway from NebraskaDepression, accompanying dreamswithered farms.Nothing left but the leaves of possibilities."

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Primary Documents from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

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Primary Documents from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

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Site Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

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Acknowledges to Edmonds, the founding editor of the Manufactures Record, that their unemployment was high but contends "it is fantastic for the Englishman you mention to talk about five million." Also notes that he needs to hear from Edmonds "because it gives me a new and important slant amongst these new and conflicting views."

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CommonLit | An Overview of the Great Depression: Cause and Effect Activity

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In this informational text, students can take notes on the causes and effects of the Great Depression. Access this 7th grade-level activity and assignment here.

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Newsela | The Great Depression as a global event

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The Great Depression was felt around the world.

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President Franklin Roosevelt - 1933 Inauguration TEXT

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President Franklin Roosevelt - 1933 Inauguration TEXT

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CommonLit | FDR's First Inaugural Address

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When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President of the United States on March 4, 1933, the country was in the grip of the Great Depression. At his inauguration, Roosevelt delivered the following famous speech, in which he addresses the growing fear that plagued a nation in crisis.

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The Great Depression: Crash Course US History #33

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President Franklin Roosevelt - 1933 Inauguration VIDEO 

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President Franklin Roosevelt - 1933 Inauguration VIDEO 

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President Franklin Roosevelt 1933 Inauguration

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The Great Depression - Causes of the Dust Bowl Tragedy

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The Great Depression - Causes of the Dust Bowl Tragedy

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A collection of videos from The Kennedy Center