Topic: The Depression Era in the US in an automotive sense

[Bill Murray]

All of us, no matter what country, suffered from the Great Depression of the 1930's.
There was an additional major problem in the US in that starting in the mid to late 1930's, there occurred a form of drought which created what we call "The Dust Bowl" which decimated the farming industry in most of our Midwest.

Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of the inhabitants of such states as Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and several other states migrated to the West Coast of the US where the weather patterns did not impact on agriculture and there were many jobs to be had as the West Coast farmers and ranchers had to make up the shortfall.

I won't go into the social aspects of this, but it was a very hard life for the migrants.

Most had no money to speak of left over after their farms were taken away from them or their employers but many still had their automobiles and they set off on the great migration to the West.

I will post an assortment of photos here to illustrate this great journey.

Bill

[Bill Murray]

Three more.

[Bill Murray]

3 more

[Bill Murray]

4 more

[Ray B.]

Some photographs by Arthur Rothstein, beginning with the most famous picture about the Dust Bowl (but no cars on this one).
Then a wider shot of the "Oregon or bust" car (your N°10, Bill), and the same group resting against the car, etc (I've also added a bigger version of the Miles City Port of Entrance)

[Ray B.]

An then some by Dorothea Lange (including a self-portrait).
No cars on two of these pics, just the road. But, while I am not going to upload every picture of the FSA photographers of the period that I have on my hard drive, these two seem to describe the migration so well...

[Ray B.]

 One road, two migrants and a truck

[Bill Murray]

Hi Ray B:

Thanks for noticing my thread and giving some really good contributions.

I too have bookmarked the FSA/OWI photo site although I tend to look more at the OWI (Office of War Information) part of it as it has so many photos of "Just before the war" vehicles of the 1939-1941 period that with the exception of Pearl Harbour and the Philippines never saw action in WWII.  They were superseded by the next generation vehicles by the time the US actually started offensive operations in the middle of 1942.

As a side note to this time in American history, my Father's family managed to more or less skip the worst of this era.
My Grandpa had a fairly good education and was hired by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and stayed in Texas.
My Dad was a good American football player and won a scholarship to Texas A&M and graduated in 1935 and joined the US Marine Corps, where he remained until 1968.

On my Mother's side, my Grandfather joined the US Navy much earlier and even though they came from the State of Arkansas which was also affected by the Depression and the Drought, they were well away from the results and survived OK.

In any case, here are a few more photos of the era, both vehicle and not vehicle oriented.

Bill

[thorax]

great tread!
seems to be impossible that those pictures came from Usa

[Bill Murray]

A few more additions, there are thousands out there on the Web.

And, yes, Thorax, it is hard to believe that this happened in the US but it was similar to the Potato famines in Ireland and Sweden, the famines in Ukraine and other places in the world.  In the case of the US, it was possible to migrate within the country, not always the case in the UK and Europe when many came here or to South America and also to Asia to escape the famines.

Bill

[Bill Murray]

A few more..........

[Ray B.]

Good ones… Where did you get these, Bill? Directly from the LOC website?

[Bill Murray]

Hi Ray:

Yes, directly from the LOC site area dedicated to the FSA/OWI photos.

As you are familiar with the site, I am sure you are aware of the background to these two organizations, and others, that were part of Roosevelt's "New Deal" program.

In case other readers are not familiar with the "New Deal", it was a program dedicated essentially to put the nation back to work during the Depression Era.

One of the largest elements of this Legislation was something called the WPA (Works Progress Administration) which was in effect from 1935 to 1943 when the demands of war production pretty much ended the unemployment problem.

Among other things, citizens were hired to build roads, bridges, schools, dams, municipal buildings etc. etc.

As that program relates to this thread, it also hired hundreds of artists, architects and in this case, photographers, to chronicle the rebuilding of the country.  The architects designed the buildings, the artist painted thousands of murals etc. to decorate them and the photographers made an historical record of all of these types of activities.

As the "Great Migration" was a part of all of this, several photographers concentrated on this aspect of the Great Depression and took tens of thousands of photographs of this part of our history.  As I understand it, this went on from 1935 to about 1940 when the unemployment situation improved and the great drought pretty much came to an end.

To your question again, you can select the FSA/OWI files as I think you already did and then do searches for particular subjects.  The main files contain about 160,000 images so it is a lot to go through and I will never get there.

Most of yesterdays photos were obtained using the search parameter "to California" which contains 12,000 images.  I got most of those photos in the first two "pages" of that search.

I will try to add more photos over time and I hope you and others do as well.  An interesting period of history in and of itself but also thousands of good automotive theme photos.

In the meantime, I am searching the OWI (Office of War Information) segments for photos of CKD, PKD and SKD operations in the early WWII period when we were shipping thousands of vehicles to the UK and Russia and to save shipping space, the vehicles were shipped unassembled or partly unassembled in crates and then assembled when they reached their destinations.

Here is a sample photo..

Bill

[Bill Murray]

Sorry about the photo size on the above post, I will fix it later.
Here is another view in a more friendly size.

Bill

[Ray B.]

Thanks for the explanations, Bill. The fact is that I was familiar with the background for these pictures long before I stumbled upon the site (a few are among the most well-known photos worldwide). I have always judged "The grapes of wrath", both the book and the film, as essential masterpieces, and felt great interest for this period.

I also bought a book in Paris, some 20 years ago, from University of Texas Press, about Roy Stryker and the Standard Oil (New Jersey) Photography Project, 1943-1950, featuring many of the photographers he had previously hired for the FSA project.
More recently I bought a heavy book (published by Abrams in the USA) about FSA photography. Well printed, but many photos are too small, and even the big ones can't match the quality and luxury of detail that you can see in the same pictures when I download them on Shorpy.

Navigation on the LOC website is not so easy in my opinion, but you seem to have learned the ropes. I only downloaded a few of the big TIFFs they offer (color mostly), having a lousy connection until last year. Their JPEGS are a bit small for my taste.

[Bill Murray]

Hi again Ray:

Yes, The Grapes of Wrath is also one of my favourites as well. Nice to know that you have that interest in a part of the history of the US.  As I was born in China and lived in Sweden, Peru and Canada, I have found similar "period" interests in each country that I look at from time to time.  Amongst others, what I call the "Concession  Period" from 1900 to 1941 in China when the UK, France, Czarist Russia, Germany and the US had rather large portions of the larger cities under their control.  Essentially, each "Concession" was sovereign territory of whatever country had possession of it.  The Chinese Govt. had essentially no power in these areas.  In my case, I was born in the American Hospital in Peking as it was then called and we lived in an apartment in the former Russian Legation.

Regarding Sweden, I have done a little research on the emigration of Swedes to the upper midwest area of the US.

Peru saw an influx of Brits, Italians and Swiss at the end of the 19th and early 20th Century and I have looked a bit at that.

Whilst they are much better off for it, I also look from time to time at the history of why Canada did not join in the revolution against Britain that resulted in the US being formed.

Well, I am writing a book, sorry.

Back to the LOC site, yes, the JPEGs are way too small and I took their survey so I could mention this.  At 73 years, my eyes are not what they used to be.  Still, it is there and it is an invaluable record of this period of history so I just soldier on.

Bill

[Ray B.]

A fellow we've already seen, and a few others

[Ray B.]

Bill already posted one of these color pictures of Pie town, New Mexico, by Russell Lee. Here are some more.
Most of the kids, as usual, have no shoes. It seems rather shocking, seen from our 2013 point of view but I still witnessed this in Dublin, Ireland, around 1986.

[thorax]

great pictures!

[Bill Murray]

Totally off the main subject but I mentioned I had an interest in immigration from Sweden to the US earlier in the thread.

Here is a photo of a successful Swedish businessman in Minnesota at the turn of the century.  He emigrated to the US in 1868.

Bill

[Ray B.]

There are two interesting swedish film about emigration a that period. The Emigrants and its sequel The New Land
You follow these people from their life in Sweden, to their settlement in Minnesota and the big Sioux uprising of 1962.
Unfortunately no motorcar in these stills of course.

[Bill Murray]

Outstanding photos, Ray!!  You really have an eye for this sort of thing.

I also continue to be impressed by your interest in such a wide range of subjects.

Thanks very much for the tip on The Emigrants and The New Land.
Max and Liv are two of my favourite actors and I was not aware for some reason of these two films.

I found a two minute trailer on The Emigrants on You Tube and maybe the whole film so I shall have a look later today.
It was originally released in Swedish and I would love to get that version to continue to try to hold on to my Swedish language skills.

As well, you have encouraged me to start to build a file on immigration to Peru from Europe and elsewhere as well as the general subject of China.  I will post a couple of photos I grabbed today on these subjects and will later start new threads on the subjects if I can get enough interesting documents.

In the meantime, I hope you continue to contribute to this thread.

Bill

[thorax]

Peruvian-Italian bar is interesting and curious

[Ray B.]

This topic is certainly not the place, but we sure would like to learn more about Bill Murray's life and travels !

[Bill Murray]

Ray, you are inspiring me to completely change my research targets.

I am not ready yet, but I am building small, so far, files on countries that I lived in and trying to find interesting photos that will fit in with this Forum format.

Still off the main topic, but for Thorax, here is a photo off the web of the premises of Carlos Manucci (Italian immigrant to Peru).

His son owned the Volvo/Ford dealership when I lived there and he hosted my wife and children several times in his city of Trujillo.  They were also involved in the fishing business and took us out a few times on their private boat to watch the "catch".

On our last visit, they presented me with a large porcelain sign that said "Repuestos Legitimos Ford" that is still hanging on the wall of my garage.  The sign dated from the 1940's.  I have not found it yet, but I know I also have a photo of their 1940 Ford coupe race car that I will post later.

In the meantime, here is a photo of the dealership.

bill