After the rollicking excesses of the 1920s—the “Roaring Twenties”—the United States was shocked back to reality by the advent of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the nation’s history. Seemingly overnight, banks failed, unemployment soared, and people were going hungry. In cities and towns across the country, people queued up in bread lines or outside charity soup kitchens just to get something to eat because they could not afford to buy food on their own. Municipalities, charitable organizations, and even celebrities labored to provide food for those in need. This photograph shows a bread line in New York City in 1930.