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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It forged a tough generation,
By OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)
This review is from: The Great Depression (Paperback)
This best single volume on the effects of the Great Depression that I have found. The author has focused on the individual human element more than the economic, political, and intellectual elements (though he does give a good summary of these also.) Most of the book is composed of actual newspaper and magazine articles from the period, as well as testimony given before Congress. There are actual interviews with representaive families done by researchers while the Depression was still dragging on.
The first section: "Crash!" The interesting part here is how Republicans of the time refused to admit that anything was wrong. The Hoover adminstration did little or nothing to help people when jobs, savings, and investments evaporated- even though malutrition and starvation were appearing. The shock of the people at the end of what they were told was a never-ending New Era of Prosperity is well expressed. The second section: "The Farmer in the Depression." It is made clear that most farmers were in a depression all through the twenties. When banks started foreclosing in the 30's they started radical action on their own. The third section: "America's Shame: The Crisis of Relief." This section shows just how haphazard and inadequate local relief efforts were. There was more widespread malnutrition- and actual starvation- than the powers-that-be ever admitted. The fourth section: "Nomads of the Depression." The number of people roaming the land to find some kind of work was staggering. The section on boy and girl tramps is especially enlightening. So is the piece on the "vagrant civil engineer"- anyone could find themselves homeless- though that term wasn't in use yet. The fifth section: "The Depression and Education." Most people do not realise that many public school disticts either drastically shortened or entirely cancelled school terms because no property taxes were being collected. Teachers worked for long periods with no pay- and fed their students out of their own pockets. The sixth section: "Will there be a Revolution?" There are some really perceptive pieces here as to why we didn't have violent revolution in the U.S. The consensus of the people was always that the "Roosevelt Revolution" saved the nation. The seventh section: "Some case histories." Here you have actual case studies from some representative families that show you exactly how they coped when earnings, savings, and relief ran out. The author points out that even when he was putting this book together in 1960 people were forgetting- deliberately trying to forget- the suffering of the Great Depression. There had already been an entire generation that had never known Hard Times. That's why he wrote the book. It comes across just how much these times changed and toughened the people who came through them. Reading their stories, I felt proud of them. I also recognized many simularities between what happened during 1929-1941 and what has happened to the working class and poor since 1973. The prime difference are those measures put in place by Roosevelt and his New Deal (though these safegards are being whittled down more and more every year by the current crop of blind, greedy Republicans in office.)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It forged a tough generation,
By OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)
This review is from: The Great Depression (Paperback)
This best single volume on the effects of the Great Depression that I have found. The author has focused on the individual human element more than the economic, political, and intellectual elements (though he does give a good summary of these also.) Most of the book is composed of actual newspaper and magazine articles from the period, as well as testimony given before Congress. There are actual interviews with representaive families done by researchers while the Depression was still dragging on.
The first section: "Crash!" The interesting part here is how Republicans of the time refused to admit that anything was wrong. The Hoover adminstration did little or nothing to help people when jobs, savings, and investments evaporated- even though malutrition and starvation were appearing. The shock of the people at the end of what they were told was a never-ending New Era of Prosperity is well expressed. The second section: "The Farmer in the Depression." It is made clear that most farmers were in a depression all through the twenties. When banks started foreclosing in the 30's they started radical action on their own. The third section: "America's Shame: The Crisis of Relief." This section shows just how haphazard and inadequate local relief efforts were. There was more widespread malnutrition- and actual starvation- than the powers-that-be ever admitted. The fourth section: "Nomads of the Depression." The number of people roaming the land to find some kind of work was staggering. The section on boy and girl tramps is especially enlightening. So is the piece on the "vagrant civil engineer"- anyone could find themselves homeless- though that term wasn't in use yet. The fifth section: "The Depression and Education." Most people do not realise that many public school disticts either drastically shortened or entirely cancelled school terms because no property taxes were being collected. Teachers worked for long periods with no pay- and fed their students out of their own pockets. The sixth section: "Will there be a Revolution?" There are some really perceptive pieces here as to why we didn't have violent revolution in the U.S. The consensus of the people was always that the "Roosevelt Revolution" saved the nation. The seventh section: "Some case histories." Here you have actual case studies from some representative families that show you exactly how they coped when earnings, savings, and relief ran out. The author points out that even when he was putting this book together in 1960 people were forgetting- deliberately trying to forget- the suffering of the Great Depression. There had already been an entire generation that had never known Hard Times. That's why he wrote the book. It comes across just how much these times changed and toughened the people who came through them. Reading their stories, I felt proud of them. I also recognized many simularities between what happened during 1929-1941 and what has happened to the working class and poor since 1973. The prime difference are those measures put in place by Roosevelt and his New Deal (though these safeguards were whittled down and bypassed more and more over the years.)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very interesting, personal look at the Great Depression,
By
This review is from: The Great Depression (Paperback)
"The Great Depression" is made up of newspaper articles and transcripts of reports made at government committee hearings made during 1929-1934. There were also six case histories about the lives of "ordinary people" during the worst of the Great Depression and how they survived. Some articles were more formal than others, but this book gave a good idea of how the Great Depression affected people from every class and circumstance. This book didn't get into what caused the Great Depression or what was done on the national scale to get out of it except in how those things affected people on a personal scale. I found this book very interesting, and I'd highly recommend it.
Topics covered were unemployment numbers, wage decreases, ways attempted to earn money after a job was lost, relief measures by the government, malnourishment in children, vagrants and migratory workers, bank failures, stock drops, the fear of a violent revolt against the government, and how the depression affected the farmers, middle class, industrial workers, teachers, public schools, and college students.
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