Children and families face winter suffering in Queens, New York, during the Great Depression. Opening slate reads: "20,000 Queens Children Face Winter Suffering, QUEENS DIVISION , Emergency Unemployment Relief Committee." First images show modest houses with clothes hanging on lines to dry. The Queensboro Bridge is in the Background. Robert Moses, New York City park Commissioner, who is a member of the Emergency Unemployment Relief Committee of New York, is seated at a desk. Closeup of him standing. View shifts to people (mostly men) completely filling a wide sidewalk, in a food line.Close up view of legs and shoes of unemployed and hungry men shuffling forward in line. Officers check men. Men collect food. A man collects food items from garbage on ground. A group of man scavenge for food in a garbage or refuse dump area. Furniture and belongings of people being hauled to street during evictions. Food bundles given to men. A man brings food bundle inside house and presents it to his eager and smiling children seated at table. Children open the package. Long lines of people enter a municipal building and sign relief or unemployment documents. A woman stands with her sad children. A girl at doorway of a house. A young boy cries. A woman with her two sad children in a house. The woman cries.
Great Depression scenes and recovery efforts in the United States. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurated as President on March 4, 1933. Scenes of Roosevelt and outgoing President Herbert Hoover leaving the White House together in a top-down convertible limousine before the ceremony. Roosevelt at the U.S. Capitol building during the inauguration ceremony as President of the United States. Roosevelt delivering the famous line in his speech, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Jobless American men wait in unemployment relief lines to get work or jobs. Men in a bread line. Unemployed man with a large sign "Will take any job." Scenes of families migrating in the United States, with vehicles filled with belongings. Families and children suffering poverty and in makeshift camps and tenement dwellings during migration (usually migration west). Troops and bands march with American flags on Constitution Avenue during the Roosevelt Inauguration parade. Exterior view of U.S. Capitol Building framed by tree limbs. Men in an office empty heavy mailbags filled with letters (presumably to congress and senate). Government officials at a long table working on emergency banking laws in March of 1933. Scene of people flooding into a bank and making a run on the bank to retrieve deposits. President Roosevelt signs Emergency Banking Act in his office on March 9, 1933. View of White House lawn and White House. The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) is created to put unemployed young men to work on various conservation projects. CCC boys and men working on planting trees with pick axes and mattocks. Men and women in line to sign up for Emergency Work Relief programs. Officials write down the information for each worker as they are put to work in a variety of projects. Women and men, including white and African American men are seen getting assigned to work projects. A sign "USA Work Program WPA" advertising a suspension bridge work project of the Works Progress Administration in Los Angeles, California. People build roads, bridges and post offices. Cable fed out of a large spool as construction of a suspension bridge is shown. People work in factories. Close up views of railroad train locomotive wheels as they start moving and the train on tracks near factories. Various factory scenes including smokestacks, groups of workers entering factory for work shift and closeup view of a steam whistle blowing to mark the start or end of a work shift. A coal mining operation. Automated tools dig coal in shaft. Two coal miners take a break and eat. Crane hoists material at mine. A steel factory and hot molten steel pouring from a ladle.
Signboard of Unemployment Relief Demonstration at Union Square. "Daily Worker" newspaper held up with headline, "'Forgotten' of N.Y. Fight For Their Demands Today As Wall St. Places Roosevelt In White House." Crowd with speaker at Union Square during the Great Depression. Huge Crowd at Union Square. Policemen on horseback in background containing demonstrators. Workers listening. Marchers with placards arrive. Views of faces as the police controls the crowd. Women and young people walking. Various placards including "We Demand Free Food and Clothing"
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt delivers a speech on Works Relief Program in Washington DC, United States (became the Works Progress Administration or W.P.A.). The President speaks standing in front of a number of microphones. He speaks about the Works Relief Program enacted by the Congress to combat unemployment during the Great Depression. He says that the first step is to put men and women on relief rolls. It is for the first time in five years that the relief rolls have declined in the winter months. He says that even though unemployment persists in the US, they have coined some remedial measures in which there are provisions to rule out future unemployment and to help those who are unemployed in the present emergency and the Work Relief Program helps to achieve this.
Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects to build better cities in Massachusetts, United States, during the Great Depression. View of 'Closed' sign on factories during high unemployment. Jobless, hungry, and homeless American workers appear depressed. Americans stand in a queue to receive food relief. Scenes of better economic times in Massachusetts: Factories start and workers get jobs. People and families celebrate after getting employment. Streets in Springfield being paved and sewer pipe installed. WPA workers at construction work on demolition projects. Local labors use native materials in construction work. Women get jobs and work at a sewing projects. Woman designs a costume. WPA artists paint shore scenes.
Flood relief operations in Springfield, Massachusetts. A vehicle half sunk in water. A few men beside the vehicle. View of the vehicle beside a few trees and buildings surrounded by water and men in waist deep water. WPA (Works Progress Administration) men sewing garments as part of the flood relief work. Heaps of garments in a room. Men trying on the garments. Few children wearing clothes. WPA men delivering food and clothes to people during the flood relief work. People waiting in lines are provided with food. WPA men stacking things in the back of a truck. The truck moving on a street in water. Men carrying things to houses. A dog with pups. Several dogs on the street. A kitten taken in a basket. Babies in small beds. Nurses taking care of the babies. A baby is fed milk from a bottle. A baby is given a bath. The nurses bath the babies in small tubs. Flood waters flowing among trees. Water gushing through the streets damaging buildings and houses.
Crowd marching from Union Square to City Hall to demand trucks for trip to Washington DC. People marching with banners against unemployment. Policemen can be seen on horseback controlling crowd.. Close view of a banner which reads 'Answer Bank Holiday with Rent Holiday'. Women and young people walking. Other placards "Brighton Beach Unemployed Council" and "We want relief not military training" and "We demand hot lunches."
Chronicles recovery in America after the Great Depression in the United States, from roughly 1933-1967, but with emphasis on the earlier years of that period. Pre-war work programs such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) help with employment. Farmers work in their fields with tractors. Officials in an office discuss and prepare graphs. Workers drill and work at a construction site. The 1933 Homeowners Loan Corporation sparks new home building. View of new homes being built and new suburban neighborhoods. Brief scene of bombing at Pearl Harbor. American warships launching from shipyards during World War II. Women war production workers work in factories in the United States. Post-war Marshall Plan aid being sent to European countries. Crates of supplies marked for European countries. Industrial output booming again, and scenes of industrial factories and plants with smoke pouring from chimneys and pollution from stacks. Large pool typists room filled with female typists and clerical workers busy at work in government agency. Close up views of hands of women operating typewriters. Reforms for housing projects, African American Civil Rights and measures taken to stabilize unemployment, with scenes of successive Presidents signing reform bills, including Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. A ship departs from a harbor with goods. A convoy of vehicles on a road. Various Federal buildings in Washington DC. The White House building. An aerial view of an American town and of a factory with pollution smoke emitting from stacks. Letters being delivered to elderly women. People enter a medical clinic and wait in the clinic waiting room. Racially integrated classroom of older high school students or university students, with white and African American students, and both young men and women. A young white woman worker and a young African American working in a machine shop or possibly an academic shop class. A white and a African American man share a sandwich and views of white and black people together in integrated classrooms and factories as segregation begins to wane. Elementary school children in a classroom drawing pictures.
The WPA (Works Progress Administration) project in New York, United States. Women stitch garments for relief families in WPA sewing rooms. A teacher teaches young children in a nursery school. Children seated at a table eating food.
Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects in New York City during the Great Depression. Skilled architects, draftsmen, and artists work for the WPA on a massive scale model of New York City, built in cooperation with New York University (this model predates the famous Panorama of New York City model built for the 1964 World's Fair). An artist is seen leaning over part of the model painting one of its features, which include detailed roads, bridges, buildings, and waterways. A hand lifts a building and measures its base with a ruler. Cartographic Survey WPA workers are seen creating a relief map of Staten Island for educational use. Men and women artists, including sculptors, are seen creating new sculptures funded by WPA. A man carves a bust in an art studio or class. Another man carves a relief stone commemorating Dewitt Clinton. A man stands in a Free Library and looks at books. Two women on a park bench look at books from the WPA Free Library holdings. A skilled artist is seen laying out and buildings stained glass windows for the United States Military Academy at Westpoint in New York. Stained glass panels depicting George Washington and soldiers are seen. A series of the George Washington stained glass windows is seen in place, with the artist applying final touches. Men work on the Federal Theater Project. Billboard signs advertising various WPA funded theatre productions in 1936 are shown, including Jefferson Davis, The World's Greatest Circus, Taking the Air, The Mikado, Macbeth, All American Minstrels, Battle Hymn, and Horse Eats Hat.
A hunger march by the communist activists in Washington DC. People gather on a street. Hunger march truck trains or convoys drive past on the street. Maryland State troopers on motorbikes drive past along with the vehicles. Posters and placards on the vehicles. A poster on a truck reads: 'Winter Relief Unemployment Insurance'. They are stopped by policemen. An officer with a tear gas gun on the street. People watch the vehicles. The policemen stand at attention on the street blocking the passage of the activists.
The WPA (Works Progress Administration) project in New York, United States. A reservoir at Albany under construction. A large number of workers work on the project. Men leveling the ground. A group of people pulls a rope. The water reservoir that will supply water to the entire town. A water reservoir under construction in Buffalo. View of Rush town hall building. Women stitch garments for relief families in WPA sewing rooms.
Flood relief operations of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in Pennsylvania during the Great Depression. Flood relief operations by WPA and flood devastation becomes headlines of newspapers. Flood-damaged goods being shoveled out of stores in Sharpsburg. Debris and mud being cleaned from streets and dumped in the Allegheny River. Safety instructions being pasted on telephone poles in McKees Rocks. Water being distributed by tanker trucks to people who need fresh water. People standing in queue to receive water. Salvation Army units dispense food andhot drinks to WPA workers and to lines of affected homeless and unemployed citizens. Interrupted highway and roads due to flood water. Flood-battered furniture being removed from homes in the New Kensington area.
Jobless and unemployed people rush for jobs in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in New York, United States as unemployment benefits are cut back during Great Depression. Buildings along the sides of a street in New York City. People gather on the street in long lines awaiting their chance for a job. Women using typewriters to type job applications for lines of men. Men engaged in construction of buildings in New York City. Views of foundation and excavation work, and brick layers laying brick.
Drought affected areas of the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression in the United States. U.S. Army engineers and WPA (Works Progress Administration) relief workers construct the Fort Peck Dam in Montana. Workers digging. Tunnels and spillways at the construction site. Heavy machinery and equipment. A worker on the tracks leading into a tunnel. The gigantic structure at the headwaters of the Missouri River. Ranchers with their cattle near ponds and lakes built by WPA labor. An old rancher on his horse with a dog alongside. Ranchers with horses as they drink from a pond. A rancher with his son and their dogs look on as cattle graze and bathe.
Women sewing clothes for needy families as a part of the WPA program (Works Progress Administration) in Ohio United States during the Great Depression. Close up views of the women seamstress workers as they sew. Young children play with toys and engage in play activities in a nursery school or preschool built for children of working and needy mothers by the WPA. Children work with tools and hammers on projects. Children play in a wooden frame play house. Boy and girl children on swings in the nursery as a teacher watches over them. Smiling children wash up with soap and water using wash basins. One boy jokes and bumps against the girl beside him. The boys and girls lay down on cots for nap time. A boy and a girl sleeping during a nap at the school. Life Guards attend life- saving instructional classes on a beach. Lifeguards rescue a woman from the water and bring her to safety. Men put up a policeman cut out image with sign stating "Slow. School" as a safety measure near a school. People at the improved Toledo Zoo. Families look at a wall built from salvage material in the zoo. Families and children watch a monkey move across a rope ladder at the zoo. A group of monkeys in a pond. The WPA Symphony Orchestra performs in the open band shell amphitheater at the Toledo Zoo (the Zoological Park Amphitheater, Toledo, Ohio). WPA Orchestra with musicians employed through federal funds, are seated on the stage as they perform. Families indulge in swimming and relax in a community swimming pool in Ohio. A young boy climbs a fountain in the pool to take a closer look.
The film 'A better New York State' shows unemployment in New York, United States. Boards read 'Closed', 'No Men Wanted'. Jobless American people seated on a bench. A board reads 'Unemployed will take any job'. Young people sleep on benches and streets. Men work in factories and fields. Workers stand in a line to get their hard earned money. A man plays with his child. Milk and vegetables. A building under construction.
American farmers and their families leaving in trucks packed and loaded with their belongings. A car on desolated road. 'No more dust bowl', 'On to Oregon' and 'California' can be seen written on trucks and other vehicles belonging to farm families and workers heading west during westward migration from dust bowl and unemployment. Men and women can be seen working in farms. Migrant worker family groups in makeshift camps and tents as they move westward during the Great Depression. Views of deserted roads, trees on both the sides. A board showing direction and distance to various cities and places of Washington. A sign board marked 'Entering Grand Coulee'. Construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington is underway. Technicians and workers using large construction machines and dynamite blasts. Views of Grand Coulee Dam, a hydroelectric gravity dam on the Columbia river in Washington State, United States.
Part of a documentary on the history of the Labor Department in the United States. Opening scene shows numerous children gathered around a large wooden picnic table outdoors, as a woman and two men serve them lunch, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, in the United States. The setting is a barnyard, with chickens walking about in the background. Scene shifts to many women working in an Emergency Employment Office of the U.S. Department of Labor. They are all engaged in various kinds of clerical activities. Next, men are seen receiving hot food at an outdoor "Soup Kitchen." People on a "bread line." A woman getting the last bit of food from an empty food kitchen pail. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is seated at his desk, surrounded by interested persons, as he signs the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935, and appoints the Secretary of Labor as head of a committee to develop a Social Security Program which shall embrace and cover the hazards of old age, unemployment, the handicapped, and children. A rural family seen on their porch. Many unemployed men gathered on a building porch in a rural setting. Railroad cars and an industrial site can be seen in the background. Children gathered on an open porch. The U.S. Capitol building. Coal miners headed into a mine shaft, wearing helmets with lights and carrying their lunch pails. Workers on an automobile assembly line. Rural poor families near their makeshift houses. A woman airing out bedding outdoors. Men stoking a furnace. A large group of child laborers. A factory with multiple smoke stacks. Striking union members carrying signs on a picket line. Others carry signs identifying them as members of the International Seamen's Union. One of them carries a sign reading: "Radio is the only Hope. Insist on reliable radio protection." Other union members in an outdoor protest. A group of businessmen, ostensibly in peaceful negotiations, facilitated by the Department of Labor.
From a film titled "A better Ohio". Scenes of Great Depression period in the United States: Idle men, closed factories, men searching through trash, sleeping on sidewalk. Scenes of post depression recovery: Smoke from factories, lines of workers, ample food, happy families. Views of Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects in Ohio: Airstrip construction of runways at Cleveland Airport; construction of Dayton Airport runways and aerial view of the Dayton Airport area; pipe capping and sealing work at abandoned coal mines to prevent pollution of local water supply; remodeled orphanage in Defiance, Ohio, with orphan children playing on the grounds of the Defiance County Children's Home; repaired and updated buildings at the Home for Sailor's and Soldier's Orphans at Xenia, Ohio; newly built dairy farm at the Sailor's and Soldiers Home; Rebuilt wing of the old people's home for care of the elderly in Napoleon, Ohio; view of the newly constructed tuberculosis sanatorium in Toledo, Ohio (the William Roche Tuberculosis Hospital). Scenes of fast moving flood waters during flood of Spring 1936 in Ohio. Flood water rushing past flooded buildings. WPA -constructed dams, levees, and retaining walls are seen during building process. African American and white workers seen digging together with shovels on the project. New trees are planted at the sites.
Views of construction sites and workers in New York City, under aegis of the Work Projects Administration (WPA) (formerly the Works Progress Administration) during the Great Depression. Several views of work underway with men using shovels at Front Street and Montgomery Street, at East River Drive. Signs at the site read: "USA, Work Program, WPA." Seven story residential apartment building next to work site. Other apartment houses in background. Pedestrians and vehicles passing the work site.
American citizens in 1937 marching in protest to demand the expansion of the WPA (Works Progress Administration), the largest New Deal agency providing employment to millions, in New York City. People carry banners with slogans written on them urging the government to continue WPA job programs and benefits.
The WPA (Works Progress Administration) project in New York. Fort Niagara near Youngstown. Offices and monument restored by the WPA. People move about in front of the French Castle.
The WPA (Works Progress Administration) project in New York. The WPA constructs roads connecting rural areas to New York. A man in a rural area drives in his car with milk cans. His vehicle gets stuck on a muddy road. Workers construct roads. A rural farmer drives his car on a newly constructed road. Dynamite used to clear an area for road construction. Workers leave the area after a day's work.
The services of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the United States. Skilled workers are hired for the libraries and school. They repair and rebind the books. Books in shelves. Nurses visit homes of people and instructing the maternity care of the children to their mothers. A nurse bathing an infant. Braille maps being developed. The blind people are instructed about the use of the Braille maps. Trachoma eye disease patients in rural areas are examined. Nurses examine them and they are taken to WPA clinics. Group of men, women, and children wait in clinic to be seen by nurse or doctor. People taking eye and vision tests, reading eye charts, and being examined.
Marchers parade on the streets of Manhattan, New York City, to promote support for continuation and expansion of the WPA (Works Progress Administration), part of the New Deal Federal programs enacted in the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. The parade is led by a group of well-dressed men in business suits. It includes a brass band and many marchers carrying banners and signs. (A boy is knickers, on roller skates moves about near the front of the parade.) A woman walking alongside the marchers, carrying a canister, solicits contributions from spectators on sidewalks. The following are among the many banners and signs seen: "Workers Alliance-Greater New York"; "Yorkville Workers Alliance"; "On to Washington, January 15th, for the Continuation and Expansion of W.P.A. (Furriers Joint Council)"; "Stop! Mass Lay-offs on WPA (Fur Floor Boys and Shipping Clerks Union)" A big part of the march takes place on 8th Avenue. (A Department of Sanitation worker with broom and barrel on wheels is seen cleaning the edge of street near curb.) A float with popup figures of WPA worker, housewife, and farmer, is seen with another figure holding an ax over the WPA workers head. Writing on the float reads: "A blow to WPA is a blow to all" Finally, view towards backs of marchers is shown, near end of the parade.
Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects in New York City during the Great Depression. Aerial view of New York City as a plane flies by and clouds part to show Manhattan island below. Buildings and skyscrapers of New York City as seen from river and harbor views, with some ships and tugboats seen. Trucks on roads of Governor's Island at tip of Manhattan. An older home seen under renovation and reconstruction. View of the Brooklyn Navy Yard with WPA workers busy building and improving new roads and shops and warehouses near the docks. A bulkhead construction project is shown at Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, to reclaim land from the waters of the Bay. The work includes construction of a new Boulevard and sanitary and sewer system improvements. View of the front entrance of the Beaux Arts style Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House on Bowling Green at the tip of Manhattan. Pedestrians and WPA workers are seen in front of the building. WPA laborers on an unidentified Manhattan street (with elevated railway running in background) are busy removing old street car rail lines from the streets, in sections, and loading them into truck beds to haul away. Large public swimming pool and bath house construction projects are shown, influenced by city planner and avid swimmer Robert Moses (scene possibly shows McCarren Park pool - note archway seen under construction). WPA workers are seen building the new East River Drive, including highways, walks, and flanking parks. Construction workers seen building the roadway, with the Williamsburg Bridge in the background. A model of the project is shown with the new drive from Grand Street to 14th Street. Camera pans down from the Empire State Building to show the roof of the New York Public Library teeming with WPA workers as they remove the old corroded copper roof and replace it with a new metal roof. View of busy Manhattan streets below the workers, including a street car passing by.
People protest against cuts in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in Washington DC, United States, during the Great Depression. Unemployed men together with their wives and children set up a camp of families to protest against layoffs during the Great Depression. The Washington Monument in the background. People seated on bed cots that are layed out on a lawn. They have coffee and other refreshments. Women sew and wash laundry. A woman holds a pennant banner that says "Workers Alliance of America. For Jobs and Security." People eat food. People gather around a camp fire. Some remove their shoes and dry them by the fire side.
A large group of unemployed people in New Jersey march during Great Depression. Banners read 'We want immediate relief'. Unemployed citizens take over the State House in Trenton, New Jersey. Unemployed men sitting in the State House. The men sit in the house till the Legislators promise relief aid. From an April 27, 1961 newsreel depicting events 25 years earlier.
Provision of food to jobless and poor in New York City, United States during the Great Depression. A relief organization provides food to people. A massive group of men lined up to enter lines serving bread and hot soup or beverage. Many unemployed men lined up on the street. Police officers control the flow of men into the breadlines. Buildings along street sides. Food in crates and boxes. The unemployed men file past as workers hand them food, and they eat the food from the bread and soup kitchen.
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