Following a period of rampant speculation on Wall Street, the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, a major precipating event of the Great Depression — a decade-long economic catastrophe. By 1933 industrial production had fallen to one-third its pre-Depression levels, thousands of banks were closed, and almost 13 million Americans were jobless.
This photo of a Depression-era bread line was taken by Dorothea Lange at the White Angel Jungle, a soup kitchen for San Franciscos jobless.
More Images of the Great Depression in Picturing the Century
