In DETROIT (Michigan)

AMONG the many iconic images that helped define the Great Depression in the 1930s, the best remembered is arguably the photograph of a weary-looking mother with her two children burying their faces in her shoulder.

The photograph taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936 "stands apart from all but a few others in telling the human story of a profound time in American history", according to the Library of Congress.

With the United States back in the grips of another historic economic downturn, what are the images that would similarly tell the story of this new era of uncertainty?

For six days in May, my colleague Bhagya and I travelled through several Michigan cities in the American Midwest in search of faces and stories that might shed light on this question.

We found no easy answers.

Is the face of the Great Recession, as some call the current slump, that of Mr Rollain Green, 23? The plight of laid-off auto-workers like him has come to symbolise the squeeze on the American middle class, and the decline of a once iconic industry in the US.

Or are the foreclosed homes on the gritty streets of Detroit a more fitting portrait of the recession? Reckless lending and borrowing in the US housing market precipitated a meltdown that rippled through the country’s economy and beyond.

Elsewhere, pictures of the homeless and the urban poor point to socio-economic problems made worse by the fresh bout of economic hardship.

But these photographs of a down-and-out America don’t quite tell the full story. Amid the gloom, we found hopeful signs of optimism and determination as well.

Some American workers, like Mr Jeff Mitchell, 44, are already in the midst of retraining themselves for the much talked about "green economy" – industries focused on renewable energy and environmental technology.

Others like Mr Tim Colonnese, 49, are hoping to blaze a new trail as "green entrepreneurs" who would lead this nascent industry that promises to deliver the new jobs that the country needs.

At the end of the trip, however, the biggest question on my mind wasn't about how these disparate facets add up. Instead, the one question that repeatedly popped into my head was how a country with such wealth and resources could have gotten into an economic mess this deep in the first place.

In Detroit, for instance, the images that left the deepest impression on me were not the obvious signs of urban decay, but rather, the unmistakable reminders of the city’s tremendous wealth in the past. You can tell simply from the architecture and design of the beautiful churches and skyscrapers, even though most of them now look worse for wear.

The nearby city of Highland Park is not your typical slum or ghetto either. It was where famed American industrialist Henry Ford built the world’s first auto-assembly line, a breakthrough that ushered in the age of mass market automobiles and reshaped 20th century life in America.

As a first-time visitor, I was astounded by how cities with such proud and rich legacies could deteriorate this way in just a matter of decades. Who allowed this to happen? Where did the entrepreneurial drive that built this city go?

More importantly, who would come to their rescue? The answers, unfortunately, appear to lie beyond the edge of any photograph.

View exclusive photographs from the writer's trek through the United States here & read the full Saturday Special Report in today's edition of The Straits Times.