This is the factory I work at. I get paid well and I have been working here for a while. I work to feed my family and save for the future.

This is a picture of me and my wife, the furthest couple on the right. We are celebrating because we are expecting our first child.

Here is the day no one was expecting. Our stock market crashed. October 29, 1929

I lost my job because we weren't making any money at the factory. Me and my family had no money for food so I tried to sell our car.

Everyone around the whole city had no jobs and no money. We were starving and couldn't find jobs anywhere.

There was no food anywhere so we had to wait for bread at bakeries in very long lines like everyone else.

My wife Marie would also wait at soup kitchens for meals looking for any kind of food for our child and ourselves.

I lost my job and the factory shut down for good. Along with all of my co-workers.

This is a sign Marie made for our son Chris to hold to help in searching for a job.

We had a very tough time through the couple of years in the depression. We only had food from soup kitchens and we had to sell the house.

Because we couldn't keep our house we had to go live with my parents. My dad owned a bank and it was still functioning.

Roosevelt put in New Deal programs to try and help average citizens like Marie and I.

Some of the programs that helped us through the tough times were, United States Housing Authority (USHA) - housing loans

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) - aid for the unemployed

and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) - bank deposits of up to $5,000

The majority of our food was based on potatoes. It was the most common food source.

Even though we were in a terrible position as a country, we had just gotten a new president. Franklin Roosevelt.

We would listen to our president talk on the radio and it made us more comfortable about the situation. His fireside chats brought everyones spirits up.

The crash of the stock market wasn't the only cause of the Great Depression. Businesses were making more products than the consumers could purchase.

There was an uneven distribution of income throughout the country. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer.

There was also many recent droughts that affected the farmers. They had a lot of trouble producing crops.

Rural areas during the great depression were having severe droughts and high winds. These in collaboration with bad farming techniques caused the Dust Bowl.