US early 20th century photographs (part 12)

This is the twelfth part of the collection images of urban life captured on glass plate negatives early 20th century. There are mainly pictures 1927-1933 period.

Historians and economists still have not agreed on the causes of the Great Depression, but there is general agreement that it began in the United States in late 1929, and was either started or worsened by "Black Tuesday", the stock market crash of Thursday, October 24, 1929. Sectors of the U.S. economy had been showing some signs of distress for months before October 1929. Business inventories of all types were three times as large as they had been a year before (an indication that the public was not buying products as rapidly as in the past); and other signposts of economic health—freight carloads, industrial production, wholesale prices—were slipping downward.
The events in the United States triggered a world-wide depression, which led to deflation and a great increase in unemployment. In the United States between 1929 and 1933, unemployment soared from 3% of the workforce to 25%, while manufacturing output collapsed by one-third. Local relief was overwhelmed. Unable to support their families, many unemployed men deserted (often going to "Hoovervilles") so the meagre relief supplies their families received would stretch farther. For many, their next meal was found at a soup kitchen, if at all.