We think of the Great Depression in black and white becasue that was the way it was shot. But by the end of the depression color Kodachrome was available. It looks different. (Duh!) I've posted about this before but here is a page with a lot of examples and links to find more.

America Before Pearl Harbor - Early Kodachrome Images

Color presents an entirely different image. This is a photograph of Faro and Doris Caudill, farmers in Pietown, New Mexico. They lived in a dugout and struggled to survive on Resettlement Administration land. As the 1930s came to a close, Kodak came out with Kodachrome film – the first commercially viable color film available to the general public. In 1937 and 1938, the colors were still not stable and accurate, but by 1939 Kodachrome was producing color images of remarkable precision.

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  thanks to Neatorama