Depression Era: 1930s: Depression
Click image to zoom in.Or view larger version. Free Way. 1937. Dorothea Lange. Gelatin silver print. Collection of Oakland Museum of California. Gift of Paul S. Taylor.
This photograph shows two men walking down a dirt road, carrying luggage, passing a billboard that reads, “NEXT TIME TRY THE TRAIN RELAX Southern Pacific.” Approximately 2.5 million people abandoned their homes in the South and the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression years. It is doubtful that any of them had enough money to buy a ticket on the Southern Pacific and relax.