american history tv visited the library of congress to meet beverly brannan to learn about the collection of color images documenting agricultural life and war production during the great depression and world war ii. beverly: in the 1930's, the united states experienced an economic depression and an agricultural disaster. the great drought. people were not able to make a living on their farms. they begin moving other places, looking for a new lands to live on. people were in dire straits. one of the worst hit areas in the economy was agriculture. a program began under tugwell who was one of the advisers to president franklin roosevelt to document the conditions under which people reliving. -- were living. this is back when we did not have television. we had radio, but a lot of places did not have electricity. so they could not listen to the radio broadcast to find out what was going on in other parts of the country. they sent off photographers to take pictures of what was happening and put these pictures into newspapers whenever they could and into magazines, trade journals, things like t

in this second of a two part american artifacts, library curator beverly brannan tells the stories about the collection and photographers. beverly: we are in the center vault of the prints and photographs division of the library of congress. the library has a collection of color photographs from the 1930's and 1940's. they started as an experiment with color film. kodak was just putting its color film on the market. sent it out to photographers at institutions to give it a try, to see if they could create a market for it. the pictures were free. so they were appealing to newspapers, magazines, publishing agencies, book publishers. that kind of thing. i was familiar already with the black and white photographs. there are about 171,000 farm security administration and office of war information black-and-white photographs. and i had been working with those for a few years. there was not much emphasis placed on the color transparencies, because they were hard to handle. they were unique items. there's only one of each. at the time, in the 1970's, it was really difficult to make a copy. it wa

eastern, on american artifacts, library of congress curator beverly brannan on life in the 1930s and '40s through color photographs, and sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern on reel america, three films on the 1976 elections, produced by the u.s. information agency for an international audience. then, at 8:00 p.m. eastern, on the presidency, acceptance speeches from five presidential nominees, harry trumman, adlai stevenson, dwight eisenhower, john kennedy, and richard nixon. exploring the american story. watch american history tv, this weekend on c-span3. >>> retired fbi agent william ouseley spent two decades investigating and prosecuting organized crime februaigures in kansas. he's the author of mobsters in our midst, the kansas city crime family. next, the former fbi agent sits down for a discussion of the city's gangster past and a look at newly discovered archives of police reports and mugshots from the kansas city star newspaper. held by the kansas city public library, this is a little more than an hour. >> welcome. welcome, everyone.

eastern, on american artifacts, library of congress curator beverly brannan on life in the 1930s and'40s through color photographs. and sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern, on reel america, three films on the 1976 elections produced by the u.s. information agency for an international audience. then, at 8:00 p.m. eastern, on the presidency, acceptance speeches from five presidential nominees, harry truman, adlai stevenson, dwight eisenhower, john kennedy, and richard nixon. exploring the american story. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >>> c-span has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events. you can watch all of c-span's public affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio app. and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily washington journal program, or through our social media feeds. c-span, created by america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. >>> american history tv continues now with historian harold holzer an

american history tv visited the library of congress and beverly brannan to learn about the collection of color images documenting agricultural life and war production during the great depression and world war ii. beverly: in the 1930's, the united states experienced an economic depression and an agricultural disaster.