Rare Color Photos from Great Depression, WWII America Depict Hardships

Rare color photos from the Great Depression and World War II America in a collection at the Library of Congress vividly document the poverty and hardscrabble lives of many Americans in those eras.

As the Daily Mail noted, the “pictures document the stories of those people in small towns and rural areas who were still poverty-stricken, as well as the lives of workers in inner city factories and workshops.” Photos were taken of railroad workers and welders in Chicago, black American families on plantations in Louisiana, and Americans along the gulf coast. 

The images were reportedly “taken by photographers for the United States Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information,” and the collection “makes up a valuable record of the country and its people during the tough years between 1935 and 1944.”