What was life in San Francisco during the Great Depression?

It's best to seek out blog posts, oral histories, photos and other first-hand accounts of people who actually lived in or visited San Francisco during the 1930s--see Grandpa and the Great Depression - Save and Conquer, for example. read more

It's best to seek out blog posts, oral histories, photos and other first-hand accounts of people who actually lived in or visited San Francisco during the 1930s--see Grandpa and the Great Depression - Save and Conquer, for example. read more

Agriculture -- always the dark underside of the California dream -- was affected first. But the most vivid memory of the Depression came in the summer of 1934 on the waterfront of San Francisco. In the years since, the memory of the old San Francisco waterfront has been cleaned up and romanticized, but it really was a tough and hard place. read more

During the Great Depression, labor issues were commonplace and strikes occurred frequently. One of the best known was the 1934 San Francisco General Strike. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal offered ordinary Americans relief and help by funding a range of public works projects and regional development of bridges, dams, and power plants. read more