Great Depression History

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.

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.

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 Panic of 1819 tells the story of the first nationwide economic collapse to strike the United States. Much more than a banking crisis or real estate bubble, the Panic was the culmination of an economic wave that rolled through the United States, forming before the War of 1812, cresting with the land and cotton boom of 1818, and crashing just as the nation confronted the crisis over slavery in Missouri.

Among America’s most infamous “public enemies” and, perhaps, the most unique and controversial was Kate Barker. With her prominent, hawk-tipped nose and plump, doughy face, framed by a classic dark, curly coif and frilly day dresses to match, Ma Barker was as nonthreatening as they come. Nary a second glance was given to this grandmotherly figure by those who crossed her path, perhaps, at most a polite tip of the hat. Of course, as the age-old adage goes, appearances are often deceiving.

The American economy is strong in large part because nobody believes that America would ever default on its debt. Yet in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt did just that, when in a bid to pull the country out of depression, he depreciated the US dollar in relation to gold, effectively annulling all debt contracts. American Default is the story of this forgotten chapter in America's history.

“Doomed from birth” was how psychologist Harold Skeels described two girls at the Orphans’ Home in Davenport, Iowa, in 1934. Following prevailing eugenic beliefs, Skeels and his colleague Marie Skodak assumed that the girls had inherited their parents’ low intelligence and sent them to an institution. To their astonishment, under the women’s care, the children’s IQ scores became normal. Recasting Skeels and his team as intrepid heroes, Marilyn Brookwood weaves years of prodigious archival research to show how after decades of backlash, the Iowans finally prevailed.

The captivating second volume of this Eleanor Roosevelt biography covers tumultuous era of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the gathering storms of World War II, the years of the Roosevelts' greatest challenges and finest achievements. In her remarkably engaging narrative, Cook gives us the complete Eleanor Roosevelt - an adventurous, romantic woman, a devoted wife and mother, and a visionary policymaker and social activist who often took unpopular stands, counter to her husband's policies, especially on issues such as racial justice and women's rights.

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.

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.

This thoughtful examination of a century of travel writing about the American West overturns a variety of popular and academic stereotypes. Looking at both European and American travelers' accounts of the West, from de Tocqueville's Democracy in America to William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, David Wrobel offers a counternarrative to the nation's romantic entanglement with its Western past and suggests the importance of some long-overlooked authors, lively and perceptive witnesses to our history who deserve new attention.

Herbert Hoover led one of the most fascinating lives of an America in the twentieth century. Orphaned as a young boy he would graduate from Stanford University, build a fortune as a mining engineer, and become the most accomplished humanitarian of his era. His complex personality led many to view him as aloof and uncaring, though ironically through his extreme generosity he helped feed millions of starving Europeans during two World Wars. After a brilliant career as Secretary of Commerce he became president of the United States in 1928 which was at the high point of America’s prosperity. ...

Craig Nelson traces how under FDR, the United States rose from poverty and solitude to defeat the greatest evils of the 20th century. By transforming what Americans thought they could achieve, FDR’s efforts ended the Great Depression; conquered the fascists of Germany, Italy, and Japan; birthed America’s middle-class affluence and consumer society; led to jet engines, computers, radar, the military-industrial complex, Big Science, and nuclear weapons; triggered a global economic boom; and turned the U.S. military into a worldwide titan—with America the undisputed leader of world affairs.

From the critically acclaimed author of Bloodroot, a gripping, wondrously evocative novel of a family in turmoil, set against the backdrop of real-life historical event—the story of three days in the summer of 1936, as a government-built dam is about to flood an Appalachian town, and a little girl goes missing.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the plume birds of Florida were in peril. Their valuable feathers were used in the international millinery trade and their extinction was imminent. A cadre of dedicated Audubon Society wardens helped to slow their destruction. Among them were the martyrs of early wildlife conservation, Guy Bradley and Columbus McCleod. Both of these men died in the line of duty protecting plume birds in South Florida. This book is based on what came after those tragedies, when a new generation of protectors picked up the conservation torch. It is nearly twenty-five ...

Elizabeth has one goal in life—to go to college and become a teacher. But it is 1929 in Kuna, Idaho, and the small family farm doesn’t produce enough to send both Elizabeth and her twin brother to college. Just when it seems Elizabeth’s dreams might come true the stock market crashes and the devastating Great Depression engulfs the nation. Overnight Elizabeth’s anxiety over tuition payments is superseded by fear that her parents will lose the farm. Is this one disaster that even Elizabeth’s faith in hard work and God can’t overcome?

The decade after the First World War saw a period of growing prosperity and new freedoms for the average American. With help of clever bankers, brokers, and a supply of easy money the average man and woman found their path to wealth – the stock market. As moths are drawn to a flame, so were the gullible investors lured to the securities exchanges seeking to turn their pennies into dollars. For years the market just went up and up, and as the lyrics of the song of the time echoed, “Blue skies, Smiling at me, Nothing but blue skies, Do I see.” By the end of the decade the cracks in the ...

Famously neurotic comedian Richard Lewis finds himself on a gurney in the ER at the age of 44, hallucinating from excess cocaine use and his body poisoned by acute alcoholism. The same dysfunctions that had been the basis for his successful stage persona and inspired his best material had, it seemed, turned on him. In this very funny, deeply honest, and inspiring book, Lewis explores how he got there, how he finally got on the road to recovery, and how he copes with being Richard Lewis sober on a daily basis.

Make it last. Save for a rainy day. Do you need it? Can you afford it? Can you do without it? Don’t throw it out. We might need it someday. These are truisms handed down from members of the Greatest Generation – the ones who invented and built refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, rocket ships, calculators, and solar energy. They were into recycling and repurposing before those things even had a name. How did they become the people they were? What events shaped the way they thought and acted? Here are stories about growing up during the Great Depression and the Second World War as told by ...

The memoirs collected in this book tell of an America where families and neighbors relied on their faith, and came together to help each other survive America's longest and deepest economic depression. These are memories of ordinary Americans of a time now nearly forgotten.