95 results for: Great Depression
Photograph
Monkey Island at Woodland Park Zoo, May 13, 1946
During the economic depression of the 1930s, workers with the federal government's Works Projects Administration (WPA) built Monkey Island and several other animal habitats at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. This photo, taken on a sunny day in May 1946, shows people watching the antics of the monkey colony on Monkey Island at Woodland Park. Written on original envelope: Seattle-parks-Woodland ZooDate…
ID Number:PI24732
Date:1946
Photograph
Intelligencer building at 1st and Cherry, circa 1876
Seattle's oldest newspaper, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was founded in 1863 as the weekly Seattle Gazette, when Seattle was little more than a sawmill, a few dozen wooden buildings, and a couple of hundred people. This image shows the paper's new building, constructed in 1874 by Henry Yesler at Front Street (now First Avenue) and Cherry Street. The name on the…
ID Number:SHS252
Date:Circa 1876
Photograph
Relief project crew working on streetcar tracks, March 12, 1934
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States government started a number of programs to help the unemployed. The Civil Works Administration (CWA) provided money for short-term public works projects during the winter months of 1933-1934. Thanks to funding from the CWA, King County was able to hire tens of thousands of workers for local projects.This photo, taken…
ID Number:SHS8525
Date:1934
Photograph
Mayor Robert Harlan standing by a shack at Hooverville, October 27, 1931
During the Depression of the 1930s, over 600 unemployed people lived in Hooverville, just south of downtown Seattle. There were several other such settlements in the city, and many others around the nation. The average Hooverville resident was a white, unmarried male, about 45 years old. During the booming 1910s and 1920s, he had been a logger, fisherman, miner, or…
ID Number:SHS8661
Date:1931
Photograph
Hooverville on South Massachusetts Street : unemployed shacks, 1931 , October 27, 1931.
During the Depression of the 1930s, over 600 unemployed and homeless people lived in shacks just south of the downtown area, on the site of an abandoned shipyard. They built the shacks out of scraps of lumber, cardboard, tarpaper, canvas, and tin which they found around the waterfront. This area was known as Hooverville, named after the American president whom…
ID Number:SHS8767
Date:1931