Colorized Photos Depicting Life in the U.S. During the 1930s and ’40sLife of the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s

Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed.

The end to the Great Depression came about in 1941 with America’s entry into World War II. America sided with Britain, France and the Soviet Union against Germany, Italy, and Japan. The loss of lives in this war was staggering.

The European part of the war ended with Germany’s surrender in May 1945. Japan surrendered in September 1945, after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

These incredible vintage photos were colorized by Lamont Cranston that revived life of the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s.

Street kids at play, Georgetown, Washington D.C., Summer 1935Street smart, Washington, D.C., 1935Cigar store owner and his Indian, Manchester, New Hampshire, October 1936Son of a woodcutter, Eden Mills, Vermont, August 1936Steelworker listening to an unseen union organizer, Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, July 193618 year-old mother from Oklahoma in California, March 1937Anton Weber, a resettled farmer, Tompkins County, New York, September 1937Biker girl, summer 1937Men on “Skid Row”, Modesto, California, March 1937Rosie’s Cafe, Texas, 1937A farm wife waits for her husband at a farm auction near Oskaloosa, Kansas, October 1938Magazine stand, Omaha, Nebraska, November 1938Parade watchers, 1938Father and daughter, 1939Migrant workers camped beside a road near Prague, Oklahoma, June 1939Tour guide, 1939 World’s Fair, New York CityWife and child of an itinerant cane furniture maker, Wagoner County, Oklahoma, June 1939Grand Central Station, New York City, April 1940Moviegoers outside the Monroe Theater, Chicago, July 1940Rainy day on Main Street, Norwich, Connecticut, November 1940Teenagers and their jalopy, Belle Glade, Florida, June 1940Couple, Chicago, 1941Teenage girls at a water fountain, Caldwell Idaho, June-July 1941Three young women outside a church, southside Chicago, Easter morning 1941Washington, D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival in May 1941Washington, D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival in May 1941

A Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter plane displayed at a war bond event, Columbus Circle, New York City, September 1942Girl sitting alone in the Sea Grill Bar waiting for a pickup, Washington, D.C., April 1942Hollywood girl, 1942

Mrs. Ethel Oxley in the drugstore that her family ran on the main street of Southington, Connecticut for more than 200 years, 1942Oxley’s Drug Store, Southington, Connecticut, May 1942People gathered for Memorial Day commemoration on the town green, Southington, Connecticut, 30 May 1942Jitterbugs, Washington DC, April 1943People waiting for a Greyhound Bus in Indianapolis, Indiana, September 1943Two 18 year-old ‘pit women’, June 1943. They worked near Concord, New Hampshire at a timber salvage sawmillWaiting for a train, 1943A crowd watching the news line on the Times building at Times Square, 6 June 1944Shoe shiners take a lunch break, New York City, 1947