The way Americans perceive the Great Depression is in large part colored by the fact that most photos of the era are in black and white.

The familiar photos are filled with pathos, but they also make the Great Depression seem otherworldly--wholely dissimilar from the vivid color of the struggling economy we now find ourselves in.

Recently, the Library of Congress has just released about 1,700 new photos of the early 1940s. Unlike the more familiar black-and-white shots, these photos are in color. And they cast the tail end of the Depression in a different--and, unsettlingly, more familiar--light.

Because The Daily Mail is talking about them today, they're getting a lot of buzz again.