Hope in Hard Times: New Deal Photographs of Montana, 1936-1942

In the 1930s and 1940s, four Farm Security Administration photographers were detailed to Montana to document the effects of the Depression on the state. The four–Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott, Russell Lee, and John Vachon–captured the many facets of the Depression in Montana: rural and urban, agricultural and industrial, work and play, and hard times and the promise of a brighter future. Taken by men and women who became some of America’s best-known photographers, the photographs of Rothstein, Wolcott, Lee, and Vachon are both stunning pieces of art and important historical documents. Today these striking images present an unforgettable portrait of a little-studied period in the history of Montana. Selected from the FSA Collection at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the photographs in Hope in Hard Times offer viewers an unparalleled look at life in Montana in the years preceding the United States’ entry into World War II.