A Great Depression era family in California.
It seems folks have become pretty comfortable throwing around the R-word: Recession. Recently, however, fears of the D-word have crept into conversations around me: What if we end up in a depression? The family above knows depression — the Great Depression. Famed photographer Dorothea Lange captured their image — and their story. According to her, this family of 13 moved to California in 1936, after they were forced out of Oklahoma by the drought:
Since then has been traveling from crop to crop in California, following the harvest. Six of the eleven children attend school wherever the family stops long enough. Five older children work along with the father and mother. February 23, two of the family have been lucky and "got a place" (a day's work) in the peas on the Sinclair ranch. Father had earned about one dollar and seventy-three cents for ten-hour day. Oldest daughter had earned one dollar and twenty-five cents. Form [From] these earnings had to provide their transportation to the fields twenty miles away. Mother wants to return to Oklahoma, father unwilling.She says, "I want to go back to where we can live happym [happy] live decent, and grow what we eat." He says, "We can't go the way I am now. We've got nothing in the world to farm with. I made my mistake when I came out here."
That was the Depression. That's how a depression, as Americans know it, looked. And there's more. Below are the children of a turpentine worker near Cordele, Alabama. Their father earns one dollar a day.
Children of a turpentine worker, 1936.
You can find more stories from the Depression, originally published in Michigan History Magazine in 1982, here, and a collection of Depression-era recipes here.
Comments
Discussions for this story are now closed. Please see the Community FAQ for more information.