World's Highest Standard of Living - 1937

'Men and women stand in line to collect goods from a relief station following the Great Ohio Flood of 1937, underneath a billboard proclaiming "World's Highest Standard of Living"'

Here in this picture, one can see the staggering changes that the Great Depression brought to the United States of America. The poster behind the long line of people describes how America pictured itself in the Roaring Twenties, and how the Americans thought they would still be in the Thirties: a nation with vast wealth, luxury and prosperity. However, while the family on the poster is smiling on their drive in a brand new Ford automobile, complete with their dog and fancy clothing, the people standing in line underneath the billboard are relatively shabby, likely carrying what few possessions they have with them in their bags and baskets, and do not look anywhere near as happy.

For context, these people are effectively refugees of the Great Ohio Flood of 1937. This catastrophic event caused almost $20 million in damages, and left hundreds of thousands without a home or the bare necessities of life. These people are waiting in line for food and fresh clothes at a relief station, almost basking in the ultimate irony of the billboard they are under; what they are going through is most certainly not the 'highest standard of living', and one could even say that the Great Flood was nature's way of combatting the New Deal, and FDR's attempts to restore America in general, as if nature was fighting back against the onslaught of technological progress. The fact that the poster remains visibly undamaged by the flood where most everything else has been damaged or outright lost possibly suggests that this life is still possible in that time, or even that no matter how hard nature may try, this technological advancement is inexorable.

On another level, the family on the billboard is completely white, and the picture of a perfect 'nuclear family' (even though the concept of such hadn't been invented), whereas practically all of the homeless are black, almost as if they are excluded from the 'American Way' of living, or are simply incapable of attaining such a life of extravagance. Such an idea calls back to the racial tensions which gripped America from the advent of slavery right up to the Civil Rights era, and beyond, and it is likely that this photograph was captured with such an idea in mind.