The great drought. People were not able to make a living on their farms. They begin moving other places, looking for a new lands to live on. People were in dire straits. One of the worst hit areas in the economy with agriculture. A Program Began under tugwell , who was one of the advisers to president Franklin Roosevelt to document the conditions under which people were living. This is back when we did not have television. We had radio, but a lot of places did not have electricity. So they could not listen to the radio podcast of find out what was going on in other parts of the country. They sent off photographers to take pictures of what was happening and put these pictures into newspapers whenever they could and into magazines, journals, things like that. It was difficult to get newspapers to accept these photographs, because nobody really wanted to face up to what was happening. But roy striker, an economist from columbia university, was persistent. He was the head of this project.
American artifacts, Beverly Brannan tells the stories about the collection and photographers. Beverly we are in the center vault of the prints and photographs division of the library of congress. The library has a collection of color photographs from the 1930s and 1940s. They started as an experiment with color film. Kodak was just putting its color film in the market. Sent it out to photographers at institutions to give it a try, to see if they could create a market for it. The pictures were free. So they were appealing to newspapers, magazines, publishing agencies, book publishers. I was familiar already with the black and white photographs. There are about 171,000 Farm Security administration and office of war information blackandwhite photographs. And i had been working with those for a few years. There was not much emphasis placed on the color transparencies, because they were hard to handle. They were unique items. Only one of each. At the time, in the 1970s, it was really diffic
Living on their farms. They begin moving other places looking for new land to live on. People were in dire straits. Wasof the worst hit areas agriculture. A Program Began under one of the advisors to president franklin theevelt to document conditions under which people. Ere living this is when we didnt have television. Of folksdio but a lot did not have electricity. They sent out photographers to take pictures of what was happening and they put these pictures into newspapers whenever they could and into magazines and trade journals and things like that. It was difficult to get newspapers to accept these photographs because nobody wanted to face up to what was happening, but lori stryker who was an economist from Columbia University was really persistent. He was the head of this project and went to newspaper offices, contacted newspaper people, magazine people and pushed and pushed against these pictures to get them published and out to the public so they could see what was happening. E
Chrome film. The library of congress curator tells a story about this collection and the photographers. But we are in the center vault of the prints and photographs division of the library of congress. The library has a collection of color photographs from the 1930s and 40s. It started as an experiment with color film. Kodak was just putting its color film on the market and sent it out to photographers and institutions to give it a try to see if they could create a market for it. The pictures were free so they were appealing to the newspapers magazines and publishing agencies, book brochures on that kind of thing. I was fill your with the black and white photographs. About 171,000. Black and white photograph. I have been working with those for a few years. There was not much emphasis placed because they were hard to handle. They were unique items. Theres only one of each at the time in the 1970s. It was difficult to make a copy. Very expensive to make a photograph. You do make another
Me it is my belief that the only thing that we have to fear is fear itself. By the time Franklin Roosevelt gives his march 1933 inaugural speech, almost a quarter of the nation is unemployed. More than 5,000 banks have failed and drought is persisting in key agricultural areas of the country. People must have faith. Coming up in the next hour, stories from the Great Depression as we take you to places like toledo and then in 1931 five of the six largest banks all failed at the same time which made it the largest banking failure of the Great Depression. To successful infrastructure of the times still impacting us today. And to one ending in tragedy. Well talk you to st. Paul with gangsters and the corrupt police force strike a bargain. Well explore the impact of new deal programs like the Conservation Corp as we go just outside of amarillo, texas. We wouldnt have a park here if it wasnt for the Conservation Corp. And well hear from artists who tell tales. We begin our cities tour featur