Great Depression History

This vibrant portrait of 1930s culture masterfully explores the anxiety and hope, the despair and surprising optimism of distressed Americans during the Great Depression.

Morris Dickstein, whom Norman Mailer called “one of our best and most distinguished critics of American literature,” has brought together a staggering range of material, from epic Dust Bowl migrations to zany screwball comedies, elegant dance musicals, wildly popular swing bands, and streamlined art deco designs.

In 1932 Eleanor Roosevelt entered the claustrophobic, duty-bound existence of the first lady with dread. By that time she had put her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her and developed an independent life - now threatened by the public role she would be forced to play. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press: Lorena Hickok. Over the next 30 years, until Eleanor's death, the two women carried on an extraordinary relationship.

In the 1930s, photographer Dorothea Lange traveled the American West documenting the experiences of those devastated by the Great Depression. She wanted to use the power of the image to effect political change, but even she could hardly have expected the effect that a simple portrait of a worn-looking woman and her children would have on history.

This in-depth look at the Great Depression will give you a full understanding of the economic, cultural and social effects of the Great Depression that continue to shape our society even today. Through this book, you will gain an understanding of the reasons why the Great Depression occurred, the various efforts taken to address the crisis, and the lasting effects of the crisis on the United States economy.

In this superb audiobook, Tom Brokaw goes out into America to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation. America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values- duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself.

In history class, we’ve been taught that the Great Depression was all about crashing stock markets, snaking breadlines, and ecological disasters. We learned that FDR tried to put it right with the New Deal, but it was only World War II that finally succeeded in revitalizing the American economy. But that’s not the whole story.

Children of the Cotton PatchCotton—like the families that produced it—is today undervalued for its contribution to Texas’s wealth and heritage, but for the region’s first century as a colony, a nation and then a state, the fluffy commodity carried the Lone Star economy bale by bale toward prosperity. In Cotton-Picking Folks, award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction Preston Lewis explores one family’s experiences on dryland tenant farms during the Great Depression and the waning years of the sharecropping and crop lien system. As the grandson of a tenant farmer, Lewis in the ...

Celebrating its 75th anniversary, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men remains one of America's most widely read and beloved novels. Here is Steinbeck’s dramatic adaptation of his novel-as-play, which received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play in 1937-1938 and has featured a number of actors who have played the iconic roles of George and Lennie on stage and film, including James Earl Jones, John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.

At the height of the Great Depression, 250,000 teenagers were roaming America. Some left home because they felt they were a burden to their families; some fled homes shattered by the shame of unemployment and poverty; some left because it seemed a great adventure. Whether with the blessings of parents or as runaways, they hit the road and went in search of a better life. By summer 1932, the "roving boy" had become a fixture on the American landscape. The occasional girl was sighted, too, most passing unrecognized in male garb.

The undertow of the Great Depression becomes poignantly personal as we experience the travails of Leora and Clabe Wilson, a displaced Iowa farm family. Gritty determination fuels this family’s journey of loss and hope, a reflection of what many American families endured during those challenging times. In this true story the Wilsons slowly slide into unemployment and poverty. Leora must find ways to keep her dreams alive while making a haven for her flock of seven children in one run-down house after another.

The 1930s are the darkest days of the Great Depression. Factories are closing their doors, millions of people are out of work, men are riding the rails searching for elusive jobs that seldom exist, and a thriving way of life that has been cherished is disappearing. Desperate people are doing desperate things just to survive, while labor strikes and veterans’ protests are turning violent. Roving gangs of outlaws have become celebrities to many people, who asked themselves why a man robbing a bank with a gun is any worse than a banker in a suit stealing someone’s life savings, home, or ...

In the minds of historians and the American public alike, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of our greatest presidents, not least because he supposedly saved America from the Great Depression. But as historian Jim Powell reveals in this groundbreaking book, Roosevelt's New Deal policies actually prolonged and exacerbated the economic disaster.

Taming the Street describes how President Franklin D. Roosevelt battled to regulate Wall Street in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression. With deep reporting and vivid storytelling, Diana B. Henriques takes listeners back to a time when America’s financial landscape was a jungle ruled by the titans of vast wealth, largely unrestrained by government. Roosevelt ran for office in 1932 vowing to curb that ruthless capitalism and make the world of finance safer for ordinary savers and investors.

Nana's Willow begins eleven years before the birth of the main character Shannon Monroe, with the meeting of her parents. The story is set on a farm in Kansas and follows the life and times of the Monroe family during one of the most horrific and colorful centuries in US history, 1889 to 1989. Born into a loving family, Shannon enjoys the ideal life until events a world away change everything. World War 1, the Spanish Flu epidemic, The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl all take their toll on her. Yet when all seems lost, hope survives.

While resisting eviction from the Queensland family property at the start of the Great Depression, Emma McKenna's father is shot dead. Emma is left destitute, with her crippled mother and twelve-year-old twin brothers to care for. But she is not easily defeated and fights back. In her struggle to survive she must overcome, heartless wealthy relatives, racial bigotry, child abuse, corrupt financiers and choose between the love of two very different men: one a wealthy Sydney lawyer involved with the New Guard, a paramilitary anti-communist movement, and the other, a persecuted and penniless ...

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In 2018, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, and Hank Paulson came together to reflect on the lessons of the 2008 financial crisis 10 years on. Recognizing that, as Ben put it, "the enemy is forgetting," they examine the causes of the crisis, why it was so damaging, and what it ultimately took to prevent a second Great Depression. And they provide to their successors in the United States and the finance ministers and central bank governors of other countries a valuable playbook for reducing the damage from future financial crises.

In 1932, America faced an economic crisis even more severe than the one it has been experiencing recently. The issue then, as now, was how to address it. When President Franklin Roosevelt came into office, he faced more economic problems than any president since has ever faced, but he came equipped with unique and creative solutions to them.

For a while, it seemed impossible to lose money on real estate. But then the bubble burst. The financial sector was paralyzed and the economy contracted. State and federal governments struggled to pay their domestic and foreign creditors. Washington was incapable of decisive action. The country seethed with political and social unrest. In America's First Great Depression, Alasdair Roberts describes how the United States dealt with the economic and political crisis that followed the Panic of 1837.

Few decades capture the imagination like the 1920s. Like so many good stories, it got its start from a time of great turmoil and ended in a dramatic fashion. What happened between 1920 and 1929 has passed beyond history and has become legend.