Hope in Hard Times*

New Deal Photographs of Montana, 1936–1942 by Mary Murphy Winner of the 2003 Montana Book Award

In the 1930s and 1940s, four Farm Security Administration photographers were detailed to Montana to document the effects of the Great Depression on the state. Traveling throughout the state, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott, Russell Lee, and John Vachon captured the many ways the Depression altered Montana's rural and urban communities, changed its agricultural and industrial economies, and affected the work and play of its residents. Rothstein, Wolcott, Lee, and Vachon's photographs are both stunning pieces of art and important historical documents.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, documenting both the hardships Montanans experienced and their faith in a brighter future. 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.