great depression

This picture is an iconic one from the great depression. I chose it because it is fairly well-known and recognizable. When you see how tattered her clothes (and the children’s clothes) are, how dirty their bodies are, how pained and hopeless her face looks, and the fact that her children are both looking away and trying to stay close and comforted by their mother, it is somewhat heart-wrenching. It makes you realize how bad the great depression was for many during that time. Like the cliché, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” this picture (and others similar to it from that time period) can give the viewer a better idea of what life really was like (in a snapshot) than a book which is less than 100 pages can.