What I am learning about The Great Depression

[texanshatingbush]

In mid-October, I asked DU'ers to recommend a book on The Great Depression which would give me a sense of the total impact on the populace, and how the most important problems were identified by Roosevelt's staff as the first targets for remedy.

Several of you came through with great recommendations. DU'er "enlightenment" suggested, among others, a book entitled ONE THIRD OF A NATION: LORENA HICKOK REPORTS ON THE GREAT DEPRESSION, edited by Richard Lowitt and Maurine Beasley.

I purchased it, and read some each evening. It is riveting, getting down to the personal-impact detail I was seeking. Hickok--a newspaper woman--traveled to 32 states between 1933 and 1935, meeting with local relief officials and talking to citizens. Each night, she wrote a detailed report to send back to her boss, Harry Hopkins.

The effects of poverty were not confined to the poverty-stricken. As we are seeing with today's meltdown, the ripples traveled outward, affecting many far-removed from the coal mines and dessicated farms.

While many, including relief workers and government officials, dug money from their own pockets to buy a bit more flour to help the starving, others felt the starving were responsible for their own plight.

While many physicians and hospitals treated all in need, others let a mother of eight children die of a burst appendix because payment could not be guaranteed before admission.

The politicians in many states were the greatest roadblock to efficient operation of the recovery machinery. They held up distribution of funds because they were more interested in building a network of political patronage.

Nonetheless, the recovery machinery put in place by the Roosevelt administration did a massive job of sustaining life until jobs and industry could be re-grown. Here's a gem from last night's reading:

*"In Maine, as elsewhere, my contacts with people outside of politics all revealed a decline--and possibly a very rapid decline--of the old major political parties. The story is the same--'We're for the President. And if what he's trying to do doesn't work, people are going to be surprised, that's all!' They never talk about being Republicans or Democrats. That is, the people outside of politics--the average citizens...."* (p. 43)

Read one of these books. It is a sobering experience, and it gives you a sense of the challenge ahead of us. Pragmatism and understanding of human nature are our best hopes. And we all need to bear the burden, to do something each day to advance the solution to our current-day global economic crisis. God bless and guide President-Elect Obama and his cabinet. That is all.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

1. taking sides was a luxury

many people could ill afford, especially when it was popularly perceived that neither side offered much comfort, and were equally responsible for the mess.

Roosevelt's organizations united the country by pointing at things that needed to be done and giving Americans the means to do it. Roosevelt fostered a sense of propriety among New Deal workers, emphasizing their true ownership of everything they built. Many of the remaining public structures built during the period show a great deal of care in construction: they resonate with their builders' pride.

How can we recapture that?

[enlightenment]

2. I am so glad you got the Hickok report, THB!

And you're absolutely right - we have to stop worrying about personality politics and share the burden of stabilizing the world economy and restoring a level of safety and security to every nation.

[texanshatingbush]

3. I owe it all to you!!!! Thanks! n/t

[Double T]

4. Bookmarking. IMO the bush/cheney depression is inevitable.........

or is already here as little or nothing is being done to address the real problems; throwing money at IT will delay the problem and make it much larger. bush and cheney want to escape the stigma the financial disaster will have on their legacy; only an idiot would denounce THEIR culpability, along with their henchmen on wall street, corporate america and congress. The book sounds like it will be a repeat performance of the 1920s and 1930s.

[crickets]

5. What a great book rec. Thank you. -nt