Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Oregon in the Depression

As if we didn't all have enough to worry about already, Oregon Public Broadcasting's excellent "Oregon Experience" series has a great set of depression era photos at their website. click here for the photos

Oregon in the depression was not like the east, where massive unemployment in the urban centers created the conditions we typically associate with this most troubled period of US History. Here in the west almost all of the land was still wild, the cities small, and the natural resources largely intact. That hardly made Oregon immune from the troubles but I think the face of rural poverty is different.