This article examines the claim that the period between the dawn of the Great Depression and conclusion of the Second World War was a “dark age” for the discipline of anthropology in museums. It argues that while museums in the United States encountered numerous common challenges due to the economic downturn and outbreak of war, the period also presented a number of opportunities, especially through the arrival of labor through New Deal work-relief agencies. This article focuses on what is now known as the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. The narrative of the Hearst Museum during this era works to complicate our understanding of the “museum period” in the United States.