Stunning color photographs cast new light the lives of children in 1940s America as the nation awakens from the Great Depression and prepares for the Second World War




Stunning full-color photos offer a rare glimpse into the lives of children in early 1940s America -- a seldom-discussed time when the nation was waking up from the Great Depression and readying itself for war.



Children were caught in the extremes of a nation in the midst of a great transformation. Abject poverty in rural areas and tenements meant many youngsters were forced to work the fields and factories to help their parents scrape together a living.

Other images show children attending school and receiving medical care. One image features a well-dressed boy outside a department store window at Christmas time, conjuring a classic holiday sight that persisted through the early 1960s.

The newly-released photos are part of a Library of Congress project to digitize and upload a trove of pictures that were taken by photographers hired by the Farm Security Administration for a Depression-era New Deal program.



Caught in the middle: These children in a rural schoolhouse in Austine County, Texas, pictured in April 1943 have not yet benefited from the industrial age brought on by the Second World War

Improvements: This little girl, who is being vaccinated by a doctor, is one of the children reached by the improved education and advances in medical care brought on by prosperity from the war

Race relations: Black children did not fare well during this era, if these photos are to be an guide. This little boy was photographed near Cincinnati, Ohio in 1942 or 1943

The United States is stuck in the midst of transforming its economy at this time, from one that relied heavily on agriculture to one of advanced industry in large cities.



Factories are beginning to spring up as the government ramps up its spending on the military -- first to produce weapons to send to Britain under the Lend-Lease agreement and later for its own army, navy and air force.



But an urban setting doesn't guarantee prosperity. Children crowd bleak tenements in large cities.

The images also show the impact of growing up in a nation at war.



Hard work: Many children in rural areas still had to work to help support their families. Here, four boys are pictured in 1942 at a Farm Security Administration labor camp in Robston, Texas

Tagging along: These four children followed their parents to a square dance in McIntosh County, Oklahoma, in 1939 or 1940, but they fell asleep midway through

Labor force: Schools in remote Aroostook County, Maine, did not open until the potatoes had been harvested because children had to help bring the crop in. These two boys live outside Caribou

Photos taken in classrooms an schoolhouses reveal walls plastered with war propaganda posters urging action with the familiar phrase 'Buy War Bonds.'

Race is an uncomfortable subject in these photos. The black children pictured are living in deep poverty, usually in wooden shacks on sharecropping farms in the south.



Those who were in the cities faced discrimination in a country that was still struggling to figure out how it would handle race relations in the years leading up to Civil Rights.



The photos were released by the Library of Congress as part of a public archive of images taken by photographers for the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information.

FSA photographers focused on rural areas and on labor -- recording the men and women who were put back to work under a host of New Deal government spending.

These pictures are just a few among 171,000 mostly black and white images being scanned and uploaded online.

Education: These children are learning to sing in a choir in Pie Town, New Mexico in October 1940

Sing on: This is a another shot of the Pie Town elementary school choir Playtime: These children enjoy a primitive carnival ride at the Delta County Fair in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies in October 1940

War drums: Children were enlisted in frequent patriotic demonstrations, like this one in May 1942 in Southington, Connecticut, to rally support for the nation's fight against the Axis power of the Second World War

Blast from the past: This could be a scene out of Mark Twain's 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' A photographer captured two boys fishing in a bayou in Schriever, Louisiana, in June 1940 outside their school, which was building by the Farm Security Administration

Poverty: The fortunes of this black family, pictured in August 1940, living on a plantation on Bayou Bourbeau in Natchitoches, Louisiana, have likely changed little since their ancestors were freed from slavery. An FSA cooperative aimed to give them the opportunity to earn more wealth

Matching: These five sisters are wearing the same dress, no doubt homemade, to the Vermont State Fair in Rutland in September 1941

Bleak: This photo of a little girl clutching her doll, taken between 1941 and 1942, is a powerful image about showing desolation in parts of rural America at the time

Downtime: The carnival rides at the Vermont State Fair in Rutland, pictured in September 1941, were the highlight of the year for many children in the rural mountainous state

Vivid: The colors in this collection of photographs offer images that can feel more lifelike than similar black and white shots. Here, two girls are seen in a park near Union Station in Washington, DC, in 1941

Ready for war: A war propaganda poster is seen in this schoolhouse in San Augustine County, Texas. The federal government made sure to rally the war effort in even the most rural areas

At Beecher Street School, Southington, Connecticut, whose student body was half Italian-American and half of Polish-American, patriotism became an important ritual for the school children

Squalor: These four little girls are pictured in December 1941 in front of their run-down shanty that is company-provided housing in Puerto Rico