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The Great Recession - a hidden Depression?
The story of the Great Depression is often told in pictures: while few people recognize the names "Smoot-Hawley" or "Schechter Poultry," photographs of bank runs and bread lines continue to pack a punch, almost 80 years after they were first snapped. But the Great Depression's position as our absolute standard for economic disaster carries an unintended consequence: The power of its images seem to overwhelm -- and minimize -- the economic troubles of our own time. After all, if it doesn't look like a Depression, how tough could things be?
The problem is that Walker Evans' and Dorothea Lange's famous images of the Great Depression don't just document an economic meltdown but they also chronicle a whole world that no longer exists. In 1929, the first credit card was still 21 years in the future, and computers were largely theoretical. When people wanted money, they stood in line at the bank, and when they wanted to apply for a job, they stood in line at an employment agency. Online job applications, debit-card food stamp programs and wasted suburban neighborhoods were the stuff of science fiction.