Images from the Great Depression
Hook | Questions | Procedures | Data Investigation | Analysis | Findings | New Questions
The student page contains the hook only. It is intended to spark interest in the topic and lead students to ask questions or make predictions.
During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal employed photographers to travel the country and take photographs. It was the first time art was financed by government. Photography was used as a recording device to provide a point of view of the social landscape during the Depression between the two world wars. Photography and film was the way to convey information and present change to the masses, when a lot of society consisted of illiterate peasants. Photography could be seen by everyone.
View a PowerPoint introduction to the images from the Great Depression.
Students might ask similar but different questions than those listed here. The more students are guided to ask specific questions, the less inquiry-oriented the activity.
The questions should provoke student analysis of the photographs. Students should be encouraged to use visual clues to gain insight into life during this time. Questions should be open-ended to allow for student interpretation.
- Looking at the Depression-era photographs, what do you think life was like?
- What do the people and surroundings in the photograph(s) look like?
After students have asked questions related to the topic, they will need to decide a number of things, including:
- Type(s) of data needed to answer the questions
- Defining important terms
- Choosing tools for data manipulation
- Defining how data will be manipulated and presented
Type(s) of Data
- Photographs
Defining Important Terms
depression - a period of low general economic activity marked especially by rising levels of unemployment
destitute- lacking possessions and resources; especially : suffering extreme poverty
refugee - a person who flees to escape danger or persecution
Investigation Tool(s)
The students will use Inspiration to create concept maps to organize their thoughts on the photographs. They will also use Microsoft Word to write about their findings.
Manipulating Data
Students will study the photographs and may chooose to compare/contrast the images with their own life today to better understand life during the Depression era. They will organize their questions and analysis of the photos in a concept map.
There is often a giant leap from defining the type(s) of data desired and actually finding the data. Providing guidance to students in finding the necessary data may be necessary.
The American Memory website has over 160,000 photographs from the Great Depression.
America From the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945
Raw data/information usually has to be manipulated before it can answer any questions. Students might be unaware of how data can best be manipulated, so teacher guidance may be appropriate.
Students will be expected to analyze the photographs by asking questions and using visual clues to come up with educated guesses about life during the Depression. They will use a concept map to organize their thoughts. In the below example we focused on the young boys who were the subject of some photographs. We compiled our speculation and questions about their clothing into one category to determine they probably all work outside on a farm. You may click on all images to see a bigger concept map.
Photo: Tengle boys, Hale County, Alabama.
With the exception of their clothing, the boys in the photo look like they could be living today. They look like any young boy today. They look fairly well groomed. Taking into consideration they’re young boys who play and get dirty, and that it’s 70 years ago during the depression where these families don’t all have access to showers and bathrooms, they look good! One boy is wearing a hat, but it’s not a hat that’ll protect him from the sun. What does it represent? Is it a school uniform? Work uniform? Is it his way of dressing up/looking nice for the photograph?
Do they go to school? Or work? What do they do/play for fun? Dog is lying in the background. Is he a pet, or does he work on the farm? Looks relaxed, more like a pet. Could they afford to have a pet to feed?
Photo: Frank Tengle family, Hale County, Alabama. Sharecroppers.
Mother with 6 children. Oldest daughter looks to be in mid teens, youngest about three years old. A lot of children to have when the family is poor.
Where is Frank, the father? The family is posed for a traditional family photo, the absence of the father is odd. Is the matriarch the one in charge and responsible? I’m guessing the mother stays home and takes care of the children while the father works. The children probably work too. Clothes look very dirty and soiled. The boys are wearing overalls, like farmers wear. Do the girls work, or just the boys? Do any of the kids go to school? Looks like there’s a swing on the left on the porch. For the kids to play on?
No one is smiling in the photo. When families take portraits they usually appear happy. The mother looks questioning, like she’s waiting for something, or waiting for it to be over. Have they had their photo taken before?
Family looks a little defensive, or unsure about the experience (of posing for the portrait). They look uncomfortable. The children look protective standing behind the mother. She looks small, maybe frail, and the children look like a support, her team, behind her. The family against the photographer.
Protective of their house. They are standing in front of their house, in front of the front door. Us against them. Photo is taken in shadow, in darkness of porch. Adds a mood, gloom. Don’t see much of the house, but it looks larger than I would’ve expected. Could they share it with another family/more family members?
Photo: Dora Mae Tengle, sharecropper's daughter, Hale County, Alabama.
Says photo was taken in summer of 1936. Summers are hot in Alabama. She is wearing white, protective clothing, like she works outside. The hat is supposed to protect her from the sun while she’s working too. Standing in front of a barn. Looks like there are pigs behind her. In other photos the family is eating melons on the porch. Maybe the pigs are to sell, not to eat themselves. What do they eat? Are they healthy, do they get protein? Dora Mae is working barefooted.
The photographer let himself into this photo with his shadow. Makes the viewer aware that Dora Mae is posing. She is identified as a “sharecropper’s daughter”. Not as a student, or teenager, etc. She is without her own identity, it’s associated to her father. Boys in first photo were identified as “Tengle boys”. Dora Mae is identified as a possession. What was life like for females? What kind of opportunities did girls have, if any? Probably expected to follow in mom’s footsteps and have children.
Photo: Tengle children, Hale County, Alabama.
Blonde child wasn’t in other photo? Where is Frank Tengle in all these photos? Adults, or older children are standing behind kids, they are all barefoot on rickety looking wooden porch. Probably have rough feet, working feet. The mother probably makes their clothes.
Chairs are on the dirt in front of the porch. Why is furniture outside? Maybe it’s too hot inside. Maybe there’s no electricity and they sit outside to get light. Children and people behind them look like they’re waiting for somebody. Do they have neighbors? Do they live in a town?
There are tree stumps inconveniently located at the bottom of the porch steps. I wonder if Frank Tengle built the house/cabin. Their town is probably very rural. Maybe they built their house amongst trees and used the trees as the wood for the house. In the winter it must be very cold. How do they cook/stay warm?
Littlest child has a doll. Kids probably don’t have toys. What do they do all day? School? Work? Nothing?
Before drawing any conclusions about the information we have gathered from the photographs, the concept map needs to be better organized. By grouping all of the thoughts by topic together, we have a more complete idea of life at this period of time.
Click on the above concept map to see it full size.
No result is meaningful unless communicated appropriately. Discussion of findings should be supported. There may or may not be definitive answers to the questions students raised.
We thought it might be helpful to include an example of analyzed research. Using the Tengle example from the concept map above, we've written our own analysis of several photographs.
Although with further research, we could find more substantiated evidence for the answers to our questions, looking at the photographs has provided quite a bit of evidence to draw some conclusions.
Since there is a whole series of photographs of the Tengle family, it is likely that they had agreed to the photos. They probably did not see a camera often. Some of the photographs look like they were setup by the photographer deliberately. They have a large family, and the children have a wide age range, which means that there are a lot of hungry mouths that the father must ensure are fed.
Looking at the title of a photograph, “Sharecropper’s Daughter,” we gain quite a bit of information. The daughters probably did not have any rights, supported by the title of the photograph. Because of the typical belief system at that time in history and the evidence that they did not have a lot of money, they probably prescribed to the belief system that women belonged in the home. For this reason, the mother probably did do the cooking, sewing, and cleaning, as well as caring for the children and maintaining a vegetable garden for the family.
It is definitively noticeable that the father is missing in all of them. This probably fits with the prior conclusion that everyone had responsibilities and the father was off tending to his instead of enjoying the time with his family. The title of “sharecropper” implies lots of responsibilities at work in the fields.
Children probably had jobs, chores, and other responsibilities. This accounts for their lack of toys, and fits in with the important issue of there not being a lot of money at this time. These families had to utilize the resources they had in order to make it, and that included giving the children responsibilities. Because children have been required by law to attend school since before this time, it is likely that students did attend, although their home responsibilities and their family’s livelihood probably was more important than school.
It is hard to tell what the Tengle family eats. They all look fairly healthy, so they probably get enough protein to eat. Fruits and vegetables are probably plentiful in their garden during the summer and fall, so it is likely they eat a lot of them. However, they probably do not have a huge selection, unless the cook is able to prepare the food in a variety of ways.
Their outfits also provide some insights. None is particularly striking or stylish—they appear to be practical working outfits. The mother probably does sew all of them as part of her family responsibilities. They probably also all have hats to protect them from the sun when they are outside working. Since none of the family members are wearing shoes, it is likely that it is an expense that they cannot afford, especially for everyday wear around the home. Maybe they have one pair each, to wear to school and church.
Their home is another source of questions. The tree stump in one photograph begs the question of whether there were more at one time. Since the house is awfully large, maybe they did build the house with the wood from the trees that once grew there. They probably did not have much money to buy the wood to build it, or to buy a house already built. It is unlikely they had electricity there, but maybe they did have a gas line for their stove. From experience, I know that homes get stuffy when it is hot, so maybe that explains why the table and chairs are outside. Though we do not see much around the house, it looks very rural, and the closest neighbors are probably still pretty far away. This supports the idea that the father is a sharecropper working the fields in the country.
Answers often lead to new questions, starting the inquiry cycle over again.
- What do you think a day in the life was like for someone your age?
- What does the content of the photo tell you? What is not in the photo?
- How do you think the rest of the country responded to viewing these photos during the Depression?
- How would life be different if a family was living in a city?