Great Depression 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.

Main Street is “a triumph.” Erik Brady, Buffalo News. On a Roller Coaster: 1902-1939 is the fifth book in the series Main Street: The History of Buffalo. The era is a roller-coaster ride of economic boom and bust—and mayors of titanic achievement. At the start of the book, as the Pan-American Exposition in North Buffalo is torn down, a city of steel rises along Lake Erie just south of town—the massive new steel plant. In the business center of town, churches of Joseph’s Ellicott’s Buffalo are selling off their lots and moving north from Downtown to be closer to with parishioners...

This true story took place at the emergency farm-labor camp immortalized in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Ostracized as "dumb Okies," the children of Dust Bowl migrant laborers went without school—until Superintendent Leo Hart and 50 Okie kids built their own school in a nearby field.

During Leora Goff’s early decades, she gathered the tenacity, optimism and hope she would need throughout her long life. When she married Clabe Wilson, they became forged into parents who would shepherd their own family through two more great eras of world and local history--the Great Depression and WWII.

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.

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.

If you want to discover the captivating history of the United States of America, then pay attention....

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 ...

The Roaring 20s are in full swing and people are living the good life, making money, and having fun. Henry Ford just introduced the forty-hour work week and there is plenty to celebrate. Nobody seems to have a care in the world, except for Elizabeth McNally, who can’t shake the feeling that there are things to fear just over the horizon, even though she can’t explain why. The McNally family is prospering; Thomas, the oldest McNally son, is still being a thorn in the side of Toledo's gangster element with his fearless newspaper coverage of their crimes, while his brother Peter’s garage...

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.

In the best-selling tradition of The Devil in the White City, award-winning author Brian Hicks tells the explosive story of the Morro Castle, the elegant luxury liner that burned off the coast of New Jersey on September 7, 1934. The captain died under mysterious circumstances seven hours before his ship caught fire off the New Jersey coast.

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.

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.

The Great Depression took place during the 1930s in the United States. There was huge unemployment, banking failures, declines in factory production, and increases in poverty and homelessness.

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.

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.

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.

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.