The Great Depression hit Idaho hard. From 1929 to 1932, the income of the average Idahoan dropped nearly fifty percent. Photographer Dorothea Lange visited Gem County’s Squaw Creek Valley, Ola, Idaho in October and November 1939 and took many pictures of the residents. These photographs reveal Idaho’s social history during the Depression and early war years. […]
The picturesque town of Ola, Idaho was an isolated community due to impassable roads much of the winter and this created significant problems for them during the Great Depression. Ola is an unincorporated community in Gem County, Idaho, United States. It is located approximately 30 miles north of Emmett. Carroll Baird homesteaded along Squaw Creek, less than […]
The garment industry is one of the oldest and largest export industries. We often hear of sweatshops and under age workers in other countries, but there was a time in America when sweatshops were common as well as those who worked at home and required their children to assist in the work. The photographs below […]
We lost a great musician early when Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr., better known as the Big Bopper lost his life along with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens in a plane crash Feb.3, 1959. His watch was not found at the crash site until spring when the snow melted in Iowa. This beautiful song by the Big Bopper’s […]
The Coffren Store in Maryland is a rare example of a well-preserved, mid 19th-century general merchandise store. Small local stores of this type one-room utilitarian structures including a Post Office once commonly dotted the rural landscape of the county. Most have long since disappeared, and the few others remaining have been altered. The Coffren Store […]
SILHOUETTES by Dorothy Graham Gast Silhouettes have been used as a means of representing images of leaders for thousands of years as evidenced by coins bearing the likenesses of their rulers. In the Bible Jesus responded to those Jewish leaders trying to trap him by asking if the Jews should pay taxes. His response was […]
Erosion of land was a major problem in Georgia during the 1930’s along with the depression. Marion Post Walcott visited Georgia and documented the economic difficulties residents had with photographs Her photographs provide a glimpse of life in rural Georgia in 1939. The descriptions included with the photographs are hers. Farmer in overalls pointing toward eroded […]
A Night I Can’t Remember by Joyce Ray Wheeler A cyclone is a low pressure area in the atmosphere in which winds spiral inward. All cyclones have two characteristics. The atmosphere pressure is lowest at the center. The winds spiral inward at the center. (Why in the world am I defining cyclones?) There are very few of my Ray family left. My dad was born into a family […]
The Great Depression and Dust Bowl were difficult years in United States History. Many people left their farms and became migrant workers due to the Dust Bowl and traveled to California to pick vegetables and fruit. This song Why don’t you write a letter home? was performed by Sam Bell in Tuolumne County, California on […]
You’ve probably heard the story of the robbers, Bonnie and Clyde, but have you ever heard of the Blonde Bandit? This story reminds me of the play and movie Chicago. In February 1930, twenty-year-old Sally Joyce Richards, branded the “Blonde Bandit,” was found guilty of first-degree robbery and sentenced to twenty years to life in […]
