95 results for: Great Depression
Photograph
Waiter and customer at Breadline restaurant, Seattle, April 1980
The Breadline & Soup Kitchen was a Pioneer Square restaurant owned by Jack Fecker, Steve Darland, and Bill Keegan. Located at Second Avenue South and Jackson Street, the eatery was themed on the Great Depression, specifically the 1929 stock-market crash that led to breadlines and soup kitchens. The menu of soups, stews and homemade bread advertised "1929 prices and atmosphere"…
ID Number:2000.107.185.18.02
Date:1980
Photograph
Men outside of the Public Employment Office, Seattle, circa 1936
The Seattle Public Employment Office opened in 1894, serving many men who had come west during the panic of 1893 to seek a living. It was the first office of its kind in the nation. During the Great Depression, unemployed men in Seattle were able to find employment on WPA-funded projects like paving streets, and improving city parks, Boeing field,…
ID Number:2014.49.005.004.0045
Date:Circa 1936
Photograph
Men outside of the Public Employment Office, Seattle, circa 1936
The Seattle Public Employment Office opened in 1894, serving many men who had come west during the panic of 1893 to seek a living. It was the first office of its kind in the nation. During the Great Depression, unemployed men in Seattle were able to find employment on WPA-funded projects like paving streets, and improving city parks, Boeing field,…
ID Number:2014.49.005.005.0055
Date:Circa 1936
Photograph
St. Joseph's Church, Seattle, circa 1930
This image is of St. Joseph's Church which was constructed with Superior Portland Cement. The 10 story building was originally designed in the early Gothic style but the challenge of building during the Great Depression necessitated a change from granite and marble to a newly rediscovered technology, reinforced concrete, bringing the original estimate from $1,000,000 down to $450,000. Reinforced concrete…
ID Number:2016.92.235
Date:Circa 1930
Ephemera
Dollars for bread instead of dollars for taxes flier, 1933
John Francis Dore (1881-1938) served as Mayor of Seattle twice during the Great Depression. Thousands of people were out of work, and many families had lost their homes, overwhelming the traditional city, county, and private relief agencies. Confidence in the economic and political systems was shaken and Mr. Dore won the mayoral election on March 8, 1932 when he proposed…
ID Number:2018.3.3.16
Date:1933
Ephemera
Subscription receipt for Weekly Intelligencer, January 30, 1873
Seattle's oldest newspaper, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was founded in 1863 as The Weekly Intelligencer (also known as Seattle Gazette), when the city of Seattle was little more than a sawmill, a few dozen buildings, and a couple of hundred people. In 1881, The Intelligencer merged with The Seattle Post and moved into the newly completed Post building, on the northeast…
ID Number:2018.3.3.94
Date:1973
Poster
National Recovery Administration member display piece, circa 1934
The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a New Deal agency established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The NRA was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and allowed industries to write "codes of fair competition" to reduce "destructive competition," setting minimum wages and maximum weekly hours, as well as minimum prices at which products could be sold.…
ID Number:2018.3.3.103
Date:Circa 1934
Program
WPA District 4 Exposition program, Seattle, May 15, 1936
The Federal government created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935, during the Great Depression, to provide jobs to unemployed men, women, and children. The country was divided into regions and districts, and in Washington State, District 4 comprised King, Jefferson, Kitsap, and Clallam counties. In 1936, some 12,337 people, about 75% of whom were men, worked in WPA projects…
ID Number:2018.3.3.127
Date:1936
Poster
Poster supporting John Dore for Mayor, circa 1936
John Francis Dore (1881-1938), a controversial politician in the unsettled days of the Great Depression, was twice elected Mayor of Seattle. In his successful 1932 campaign, Dore won the support of labor and the unemployed with his proposed tax cuts and relief programs. In 1934, he lost re-election by pleasing business interests and alienated labor when he requested federal troops…
ID Number:2021.42.1
Date:Circa 1936
Photograph
Skier on Denny Mountain, Alpental, 1976
In the winter of 1934, Seattle made national news by opening one of the first municipal ski areas in the country at Snoqualmie summit, championed by Mayor John F. Dore, a skier who envisioned the project as one that could lift his city's spirits during the midst of the Great Depression. The Ski Park grew, installing a rope tow in…
ID Number:Lib1993.20.48
Date:1976