The U.S. Library of Congress holds an incredible collection of vivid color photos from the Great Depression through the Second World War that capture an era people generally have only ever seen in black and white.

Working for the United States Farm Security Administration and later the Office of War Information, photographers captured their images between 1939 and 1944.

1940: Jim Norris and wife, homesteaders, Pie Town, New Mexico

c1940: Mississippi

1940: Hauling crates of peaches from the orchard to the shipping shed, Delta County, Colorado

1940: Hay stack and automobile of peach pickers, Delta County, Colorado

1941: Barker at the grounds at the Vermont state fair, Rutland

1942: Instructor explaining the operation of a parachute to student pilots, Meacham Field, Fort Worth, Texas

c1942: Boy near Cincinnati, Ohio

1942: Boilermaker at the roundhouse at the Proviso yard, Melrose Park

1942: Getting a nose door ready to put on a C-87 transport plane at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas

1943: Typhoid innoculation at a rural school, San Augustine County, Texas

1943: General view of part of the South Water street Illinois Central Railroad freight terminal, Chicago

1943: Working on a “Vengeance” dive bomber, Tennessee

See the entire collection here.