A guide focused on primary source collections from government agencies, universities, museums, libraries, and historical organizations. First curated by Erin Owens and Kristina Claunch of Sam Houston State University.
Great Depression & New Deal: Primary Source Collections
In addition to those listed below, you may find several more collections and pieces from the New Deal period in the Library of Congress list of New Deal Program resources.
These vivid color photos from the Great Depression and World War II capture an era generally seen only in black-and-white. Photographers working for the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) created the images between 1939 and 1944.(Library of Congress via Flickr)
The photographs in the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944.(Library of Congress)
This collection of life histories consists of approximately 2,900 documents, compiled and transcribed by more than 300 writers from 24 states, working on the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program that was part of the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA) from 1936 to 1940. (Library of Congress)
The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) collections are among the largest and most heavily used in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. Since 2000, documentation from the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) has been added to the holdings. The collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and landscape design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types, engineering technologies, and landscapes, including examples as diverse as the Pueblo of Acoma, houses, windmills, one-room schools, the Golden Gate Bridge, and buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. (Library of Congress)
The results of deep dives into the Survey of Current Business archives, providing noteworthy memorabilia by decade, including photos, excerpts, advertisements, data presentations, and other interesting items chronicling the Survey’s 100 years of reliable, timely, and unbiased publication. (Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Dept. of Commerce)
Digital copies of significant documents and photographs from the archives of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum. FRANKLIN hosts over 800,000 pages of archival documents and 2,500 historical photographs, along with many detailed descriptions of archival collections not yet digitized. Users can search the digital collections by keyword or go directly browse the full lists of digitized archival folders in a virtual research room environment. Documents include Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s New Deal and wartime correspondence with world leaders, government administrators, and regular Americans. Photographs include public domain images of the Roosevelts throughout their respective lifetimes, as well as subject areas like the Great Depression, New Deal, and World War II.(Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum)
Approximately 250 photos document FERA contruction and labor projects in Washington State in the 1930s, under Roosevelt's New Deal. (Univ. of Washington)
110+ hours of interviews with 148 people who experienced the Great Depression (originating from The Great Depression a seven-part documentary series from Blackside, Inc., which first aired on PBS in 1993). (Washington Univ.)
Web-based platform for organizing, searching, and visualizing the 170,000 photographs from 1935 to 1945 created by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA-OWI) and held by the Library of Congress. Although the photos are available in numerous places, these tools make it easier to explore them. (Yale Univ.)
Includes 57 oral history interviews with residents who migrated to the San Joaquin Valley from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas between 1924 and 1939, as well as related historical photographs and other supporting materials. (California State University Bakersfield)
"Caroline A. Henderson, Mount Holyoke College Class of 1901, farmed a land claim in the Oklahoma Panhandle from 1907 until 1966. She struggled against recurring droughts, dust storms, extreme blizzards, and other disasters. And yet, through all of these troubles, she and her husband chose to stay on their land.
Henderson’s firsthand accounts of the Dust Bowl years are preserved in the Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections through the letters that she wrote to friends and family members, along with other writings that she published in Practical Farmer and the Atlantic Monthly." (Mount Holyoke)
1930s dust storm photos. (United Stated Department of Agriculture,
Agriculture Research Service)
The Plow that Broke the Plains (Film)
A 25-minute documentary from the Farm Security Administration in 139, aims to justify New Deal programs that aided farmers hit hard by the Dust Bowl. Includes historical video footage of the devastation.
