After the 1929 Wall Street Crash, America slumped into the Great Depression – a decade of severe economic downturn that led to huge increases in unemployment and poverty – and President Franklin D Roosevelt took office in 1933 with a plan to tackle the crisis.

This plan included spending hundreds of millions of dollars on large-scale building projects. Many roads were built as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, like the Lake Merced Parkway Boulevard in San Francisco, seen here being built by labourers with pickaxes and wheelbarrows.

Explore these fascinating images of America’s Great Depression

Amazing early photos of America’s highways and automobiles