A Precarious Stability

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Man washing hands in bowl, woman in background, n.d.

In a ruined world, still the ritual ablutions



Woman plunges and scrubs, n.d.

Through the wringer



Girl in doorway holding unlit lamp, n.d. (Resettlement Administration)

Night must fall



Federal/state old-age assistance provides for those who are now old and needy, 1935 (Farm Security Administration/Works Progress Administration)

Been here since before you were born, sonny



Unemployed men eating in Volunteers of America soup kitchen, Washington, D.C. June 1935 (Farm Security Administration/Works Progress Administration)

Nothing left over



Migrant family looking for work in the pea fields of California, 1935

Dust to dust, mud to mud



Eighteen-year-old mother from Oklahoma now a California migrant, March 1937

Tomorrow looks a lot like yesterday



Guard at company town, Jefferson County, Alabama, February 1937 (Farm Security Administration)

Discourage trouble before it starts



Arkansas squatter for three years in California, near Bakersfield, California, 1935: photo by D. Lange (Farm Security Administration)

A ramshackle version of works progress



Migrant worker on California highway, 1935 (Farm Security Administration)

Seventeen miles to go before sundown



Chief of police in Oklahoma town, 1935 (Farm Security Administration)

A precarious stability



Vernon Evans family leaving South Dakota drought area for the West, 1935 (Farm Security Administration/Resettlement Administration)

Oregon or Bust



Depression: Bread lines: long line of people waiting to be fed, New York City, February 1932

A dollar will feed twenty hungry mouths



Labor strikes, San Francisco: police and strikers battle, 1934

A disagreement in principle



Labor strike, Ford Motor Company: men in physical altercation, May 26, 1937

Don't let him get away



Dust storm in Amarillo, Texas, 1936: photo by Arnold Rothstein (Farm Security Administration)

It blinds you and penetrates your skin



Soil erosion, 1935

All quiet now but for the prairie wind

Photographs from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library