Stunning Historical Photos of Car Crashes in the 1930s Boston

The 1930s were not only a period of the Great Depression but also of a nationwide panic regarding traffic safety. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote to state governors in 1935, imploring them to curtail “the increasing number of deaths and injuries” due to automobile accidents.

Leslie Jones of the Boston Herald-Traveler took hundreds upon hundreds of photographs at the scenes of fender-benders and fatal collisions during the precarious decade. Often, Jones was the first to respond to the scenes of accidents where people had suffered severe property damage or perhaps even lost their lives. In the late 1930s, auto manufacturers began introducing safety features like hydraulic brakes.

#1 Ambulance tips over on Stuart Street

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#2 Auto accident, 1935

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#3 Auto accident, corner of Warren Ave. and W. Canton St., South End

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#4 Auto accident in front of Hotel Vendome

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#5 Auto accident in South End, 1931

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#6 Auto goes into pond, 1938

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#7 Auto goes into trench in Peabody Square, 1931

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#8 Auto overturned at corner of Radcliffe Street, 1938

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#9 Auto wreck, Burlington, Massachusetts, 1931

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#10 Auto wreck, Roxbury crossing Columbus Avenue, 1931

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#11 Car crushed by trolley – North Hampton and Washington Sts, 1932

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#12 Auto hit by train kills two. Belmont, 1933

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#13 Car wreck at Charles River, Cambridge, 1933

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#14 Fence keeps car from falling, Brookline, 1931

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#15 Auto plunges into Fore River drowning 3. Fireboat pulls auto out, 1933

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#16 Truck and El Bus collide in South Boston, 1934

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#17 Truck hangs by wheel off bridge, 1934

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#18 Car and truck collide, Back Bay, 1932

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#19 Car goes into trench, 1935

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#20 Auto goes out of control and crashes through fence onto B&A Tracks near Greenwich Park, South End, 1934

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#21 Mystic River, 1930

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#22 Auto hits lamp post at intersection, 1930

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#23 Car in stairwell

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#24 Car stolen by kids crashes into lawyer’s car, killing him, 1935

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#25 Auto wreck, South End, 1931

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#26 Truck crashes through garage several stories up East Cambridge, 1938

0 Points

Upvote Downvote

#27 Wreck draws crowd, 1935

0 Points

Upvote Downvote