Have you ever wondered what our area looked like 75 years ago? Some recently unearthed photos show what things looked like in Monmouth County in the time of the Great Depression and World War II.

Yale University's Photogrammar states the photos are part of a photography project done by the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information (FSA-OWI) between 1935 and 1945. They were all catalogued by the Library of Congress, which kept track of some 88,000 prints in the collection!

There's an interactive map showing photos from across the country, though naturally I was most interested in the ones from around here.

There are more than 20 Monmouth County photos like this one:

Monmouth County 1930s
An October 1938 photo shows a water supply near potato pickers' shacks in Monmouth County. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USF34-026683)
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Some locations are a little more specific, like this shot from Freehold in October 1938:

Monmouth County 1930s 2
Migrant potato pickers boarded at houses like this one in Freehold. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USF34-026678)
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I'd love to know exactly where these pictures were taken to compare it to what it looks like now...imagine what stands on those old potato fields?

Monmouth County 1930s 3
A steam shovel operator works in Monmouth County in November 1935. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USF33-T01-000300)
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There are a lot of other cool photos to see...it's a neat little slice of history!

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