Who is interested in the history of the Great Depression (1929 -- 1941)?

[The Lone Liberal]

If you are what is it about those years that you find interesting?

Who do you think was the most interesting person during those years?

What event occurring during those years do you find most interesting?

Can you recommend a book(s) on the subject?

If I said that during that time some American people were so hungry that there are stories of men, women and children fighting over garbage from a restaurant would you think that was true or false?

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. My mother was 17 when the stock market crashed.

Her father had died the previous May. He had been a prosperous man, an immigrant from Luxembourg who in his nearly 40 years in this country had been successful in the house painting business -- to the point where he had both a housekeeper and chauffeur. In the year or so before he died, my grandfather sold off his substantial real estate holdings and put most of his eggs into this wondrous basket known as the stock market. Oops!

Of what was left after the debacle, my mother's inheritance was exactly $5,000 cash. One morning on her way to high school, she happened to pass by the bank where her savings account was. And there was a long line out in front of the bank. She decided that come hell or high water (or ditching a Catholic school with strict nuns) that she was going to do her damndest to get her money out of there.

She succeeded. Nearly 20 years later when I was a bun in the oven, that same $5,000 went towards the downpayment on the house where I grew up. True story.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. My grandmother was 16 years old

And at age 90, she is still unable to deal with bad economic news without freaking out. She makes note of every layoff or downturn the media report.

Actually, things weren't too bad for many people for a couple of years after 1929. The bank runs started about a year later, and the first bank holiday was decalred on March 5, 1933. Over this period of time, my grandfather, who had inherited one of the largest automobile businesses in Philadelphia at that time, was forced into bankruptcy, turned the business over to the Mellons (to whom he owed money for business expansion), was re-hired by the Mellons as caretaker for $16 for what would be an 80-hour week,and sank into alcoholism.

The only light in that story was that one of the Mellon sons knew my grandfather pretty well, and came around for about five Christmasses in a row and got all the kids (my mother, uncle, and they cousins) gifts. Although the family has produced a lot of ratbastards (like Dickie Mellon Scaife), it has also turned out some angels.

If it's any disconsolation, I think we're in for more of the same when the price of oil starts to climb in response to the easily-pumped stuff being used up. Sometime in the next five to fifteen years.

So who'll be our new Shirley Temple?

--bkl

[tsipple]

3. Yes, the Great Depression Is Fascinating

I'd recommend studying up on the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, for example. Herbert Hoover and the Republicans managed to enact tariffs in 1930 that helped drive the economy off the cliff. An important lesson for today and the free trade debates.

Lots of interesting people during those years: Charles Lindberg, Joseph P. Kennedy, the movie moguls like Louis B. Mayer, Herbert Hoover, of course Franklin Delano Roosevelt, artists like Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin, Ernest Hemmingway -- tons of interesting people.

I would try as much as possible to find original source materials to really learn more in depth. Newspapers, magazines, personal diaries, home movies (there were some), recordings, and photographs all can illuminate.

[David Zephyr]

4. Studs Terkel's "Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression"

This would be my first recommendation to any student of the Great Depression. Of all the many fine books and articles on the subject that I have read, this work by Terkel still had the most impact on me as a reader.

[David Zephyr]

7. And These Four Books, Too.

Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road (1932), God's Little Acre (1933)
John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (1937), Grapes of Wrath (1939)

[Maple]

5. What I find interesting

is that in all these years...no one has ever gotten the cause of the Depression correct.

[pansypoo53219]

6. my grandparents lived through it

my granma A who had lost her mother young, and the baby was turned into a saver par excellance, but also a crap rat.
my granpa F, who's father lost quite a bit, taught me to recycle before it was cool. my granma F sewed most of her own clothes.
no i am a composting, recycling fanatic. and i prefer estate sales and resale shops to malls.

[The Lone Liberal]

8. Thanks for all the stories and the recommendations.

It was a hard time in our history. A lot of people suffered. Some people didn't hurt all that badly. There is one story of that time about a well-to-do matron who said her family met the depression by firing 15 of her 25 servants. Now that is deprivation. LOL

[cosmicdot]

9. my parents married in 1935

my Dad helped to build a foot bridge over a lake in a park in our hometowm - part of the WPA - it has since been replaced



escapism

radio

movies, like "Duck Soup" and "Gold Diggers of 1933"

One-third of Americans were below the poverty line, yet some industries actually managed to make a profit at the beginning of the 1930s as the public looked for a way to escape. If Americans couldn't find work, at least they could go for a drive, have a cigarette, or go to a movie. Correspondingly, sales of oil, gas, cigarettes, and movie tickets all went up. Humorist Will Rogers remarked,

"We're the first nation in the history of the world to go to the poorhouse in an automobile."



Harry Hopkins

Convinced that work should be the chief antidote to poverty, Hopkins used his influence with FDR to push for federal programs to provide government-sponsored jobs for the unemployed. Reinforced by ER and Lorena Hickok's reports from the field, Hopkins worked to alleviate the suffering of the unemployed by creating work and relief programs for the unemployed. His particular contributions to the New Deal included the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). He supported ER's call for a National Youth Administration and the Federal One Programs, and the two worked closely together to promote and defend New Deal relief programs.

During the war years, Hopkins acted as FDR's unofficial emissary to Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, as administrator of Lend-Lease, and as the shadowy figure behind Roosevelt at the Big Three conferences.

Hopkins died in early 1946, succumbing to a long and debilitating illness.

http://www.nps.gov/elro/glossary/hopkins-harry.htm

- I got it!
- Well, what is it?
- A penny, a nickel...
- You got hold yo' horses and let me get the dough off!
A dime!

We're in the money,
We're in the money;
We've got a lot of what it takes to get along!
We're in the money,
The sky is sunny;
Old Man Depression, you are through,
You done us wrong!

We never see a headline
'Bout breadline, today,
And when we see the landlord,
We can look that guy right in the eye .

We're in the money
Come on, my honey
Let's spend it, lend it,
Send it rolling around!

All:
We're in the money,
We're in the money;
We've got a lot of what it takes to get along!
We're in the money,
The sky is sunny;
Old Man Depression, you are through,
You done us wrong!

We never see a headline
'Bout breadline, today,
And when we see the landlord,
We can look that guy right in the eye.
Look that guy right in the eye-
Look that guy right in the eye-

We're in the money
Come on, my honey
Let's spend it, lend it, send it-
Let's spend it, lend it, send it
Rolling, rolling-
Rolling around!

Additional Verse
Gone are my blues,
And gone are my tears;
I've got good news
To shout in your ears.
The silver dollar has returned to the fold,
With silver you can turn your dreams to gold.