1. In April 1940, a young California photographer working for the National Youth Administration documented the lives of the youth of California, gripped by depression as they prepared for the coming war.

2. Excerpts from his photo essays follow

3. Kern County, California, April 9, 1940, This girl came from the OK state three years ago and lives with father in a rural slum in Wasco, Kern County..."We got mighty tired of roaming around."...The girl never got a chance to finish high school and will be nineteen "come August 11."... Digging Up Potatoes

4. This potato field near Edison, Kern County, is in a new potato area which has been developed in the last two or three years. Potato fields are divided into two sections about thirty-five feet long by stake lines running diagonally across the rows. Potato digging machines run up and down the rows, followed by the field workers picking potatoes. Each worker is responsible for one section, which must be clean before the machine returns. The rate these machines travel, and the speed at which pickers must work, varies with the soil conditions and the efficiency of the machine. Wages are thirty-five cents an hour. This year there was a tremendous oversupply of labor in potatoes. Men and women hunting for work waited at the ends of the rows for a picker to drop out. Some were willing to pay five or even ten dollars for a place in the field, at thirty-five cents an hour. The natural result of this could be the speeding up of the potato digging until someone dropped out of exhaustion.

5. Sitting on a sack of potatoes

6. Exploited almost exclusively by young people, hitch- hiking has become an accepted means of transportation for the job hunter, the traveler between school and home in the holidays, and the personable young fellow who is habitually on the move. The Ethics of Thumbing

7. A \A distinct code of ethics has developed around hitch-hiking. One must never flag a woman, or a car with a woman passenger. It is improper to thumb from just in front of another's established "stand", and a reasonable distance must be established further down the road. It is even considered bad form to stop and talk with another thumber for more than a few minutes

8. The Fourth in a Line of Thumbers

9. Youngsters With Older Hobo Two youngsters aged 15 and 16 traveling in the company of an older hobo. Here they are returning to the train after having filled some empty whisky bottles with drinking water at the railroad water tower.

10. Said the older one, "He ain't at since yesterday morning." And then "Don't publish my pitcher in the paper. If my paw saw it, he'd beat hell out of me. I'm sposed to be thumbing." Their story was that they were returning from a visit to an uncle's in San Francisco to their home in Southern California, but their grimy appearances revealed they had been riding the freights for some time and traveling companions volunteered that they had come from Arizona. In Fresno that evening town police booked them as vagrants, and along with about fifteen others riding the same freight they were given sixty days.

11. Helping a New-Comer

12. Between Bakersfield and Fresno, Calif., April 11, 1940, Twenty years old and he has been hopping freight cars on the bum for two years. His home, which he has visited occasionally for two or three days at a time, is in Oakland, California. There his father, on WPA, his mother, who is engaged as a domestic when she can find work, … At one time he enrolled in the CCC, but quit after six months because the army routine was distasteful to him and went back to hopping the freights. He is a complete hobo and is not seriously in search of employment. He has no desire to travel as a gentleman hitch- hiker. "I wouldn't thumb. Freights is a lot better." In the Freight Car

13. Cause and effect. This young man reading the war news holds an application blank for employment in the Lockheed aircraft plant.

14. One of the phenomena of aircraft employment in the early months of 1940, after the cash and carry program had been put into effect, was the crowds of men in the lines outside the personnel departments of the aircraft plants. A line of two thousand a day was not unusual. After a few months the lines were reduced to about a hundred a day, due to the exhaustion of most of the available local material and the closer cooperation between vocational schools and plants. Many of the persons in the lines at this time had appointments. Line Outside the Lockheed Plant

15. About fifty to seventy-five percent of the applicants are young men in their late teens or early twenties. Many of them have had some aircraft experience in the Naval Reserve, the NYA aircraft shops or private industry. Others have had vocational training in sheet metal work or die and pattern work or have had experience as machinists. Many of them are here not because they need jobs but because they feel that working in an airplane factory is more romantic than pumping gas or whatever other job they may have. A recent general raise in wages in the skilled classification from an hourly rate of 90¢ to $1.02 is a more material inducement.

16. Oakland, California, April 23, 1940, Out of High School for a year, their contribution to the family income is wood from a WPA project. "You get awful tired hanging around the house alla time, so I thought I'd chop some wood." Neither have had a regular job since getting out of high school. Hauling Wood

17. Industry's increasing demand for specialized training and education has both raised the average age of employment and increased the dilemma of youth. For those who emerge from high school without either the means or the scholastic requirements for college, there usually follows a period of dislocation. The discouraging search for work is accompanied by spare time which is spent in hanging around. With a growing realization of the need for occupational training, and anxious to become independent of home ties, many try to find a means of learning while being paid. To some, the army or navy offer a solution.

18. San Francisco, California, May 9, 1940, One of the solutions to getting tired of hanging around. A group of selected navy recruits receiving last instructions before they actually sign up for enrollment. Interviewed, all of them gave us their reason for enlistment the desire to learn a trade. Most of these boys come from a rural areas; on third of them had discharge papers from the CCC. Navy Recruits

19. Los Angeles, Calif, May 1, 1940, This twenty-three year old is a journeymen carpenter at present working as an apprentice bricklayer in order to learn more than one trade. The boat he is building in his spare time both serves as an interesting hobby and is expected to provide him with inexpensive living quarters. Should he fail to find other employment, he plans to use the boat a means of livelihood by becoming a fisherman. When the keel was laid, he had dreams of escaping to a South Sea Island paradise; his plans have subsequently become more practical. Building a Boat

20. Looking in his pocket for his surplus commodities card. "Not having a job is bad enough, but you keep goin' down and purty soon you're here and the spirit is gone. I turn my face when someone I know real well comes along the sidewalk. It takes the spirit when you're in here and then you haven't anything left." Looking for His Card

21. Unlike most youth, who are more than willing to be photographed, those in relief lines usually object. These fellows waiting in line at the Surplus Commodities Depots in Hayward and San Leandro all demanded to know where and by whom their pictures would be used. Many turned their backs, refusing to be photographed, and only about a quarter of them finally consented. Most of them are here with cards issued not to themselves but to their families. Without exception, they feel very keenly the stigma they believe attached to any form of direct relief.

22. High school student carrying home surplus commodities for his family on relief. He has an NYA job cleaning up the chemistry laboratory at $10.00 a month. He wanted a Saturday afternoon and Sunday job to provide him with spending money.

23. "Every time they get something good, ya don't get a chance to get any." He had just discovered that because his father had recently been reinstated on WPA, he was no longer eligible for surplus commodities. The "something good" was oranges. Surplus Commodities Depot, San Leandro, May 3, 1940.