Urban Poverty

Bread Line

by Morris Huberland

The Great Depression ravaged America throughout the 1930s, beginning in September 1929 on “Black Tuesday,” the single most devastating day for the New York Stock Exchange in history. 

In January 1931 the President’s Emergency Committee for Unemployment Relief claimed 4 to 5 million people were unemployed, climbing to almost 25% of the U.S. population by 1933.  People who had always been able to support themselves found they were unable to secure a job to put food on the table and often lost their homes.  Bread lines became a common sight, for innumerable families had to depend on charity in order to survive. 

Huberland captures the hopelessness many were feeling in this photograph of a bread line.