Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man - 25th anniversary edition

276 Pages·2008·12.12 MB·English

by  Robert S. McElvaine

Praise for Down and Out in the Great Depression
"The book is unique. Nowhere else can we read of despair as recorded by those
who were feeling it hardest, unfiltered by memory."—Southern Living
“These are the forgotten men, women and children of the
Depression years."—Newsday
“There is a poignancy which occasionally pushes past the confines of history
and turns into street poetry, art, delirium."—Los Angeles Herald Examiner
"A much more vivid account than most historical
works can provide.”—Houston Post
"Compelling human drama as well as important history."—Hartford Courant
"By rescuing the struggles of individuals from the anonymity of statistics,
this volume preserves the Depression as it was experienced—with sorrow,
anguish, hatred, faith, and humor.”—The New Republic
"Some of the letters are heartbreaking with their
revelations of deprivation, illness, and old age; some provoke
a smile, and all are enormously affective.”—Progressive
“The letters bear a sense of urgency that recollections of the
Depression lack, and Robert McElvaine's solid introduction and method
of organization deepen their meaning.”—Christian Century
"McElvaine has done a masterful job."—Sojourners
"First-rate explanatory essays by the editor.”—The New Yorker
"Down and Out in the Great Depression is a remarkable testament
to a time that no longer seems so distant and, at times, strikes awfully
close to home.”—Philadelphia Inquirer
“The dispirited reality of the Waltons' age is vividly outlined.”—Kansas City Star
“These letters are a moving testimony.”—Times Literary Supplement
This page intentionally left blank
These unhappy times call for the building
of plans . . . that build from the bottom up
and not from the top down, that put their faith
once more in the forgotten man at the bottom
of the economic pyramid.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 1932
The forgotten man is still forgotten.
J. W. C., worker, to Eleanor Roosevelt, March 1935

Down & Out
in the
Great Depression
Letters from the Forgotten Man
Edited byRobert S. McElvaine
Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition
With a New Foreword by the Editor
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill
© 1983 The University of North Carolina Press
Foreword to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition
© 2008 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and
durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council on Library Resources.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition of this book as follows:
Main entry under title:
Down and out in the Great Depression
Includes index.
1. United States—Social life and customs—1918-1945—Sources.
2. United States—Social conditions—1933-1945—Sources.
3. Depressions—1929—United States—Sources.
I. McElvaine, Robert S., 1947-. II. Title.
E169.D746 973.91 82-7022
ISBN 978-0-8078-5891-2
12 11 10 09 08 5 4 3 21
In Memory of My Mother,
Ruth Ludewig McElvaine,
1902-1978
one who loved history and
taught me that love
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Foreword to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition xi
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1
Part I: The Early Depression 33
Chapter 1. Reactions to Hoover and Economic Breakdown 35
Part II: Conditions of Life in the Thirties 49
Chapter 2. Proud But Frightened: Middle-Class Hardship 51
Chapter 3. The Grass Roots: Rural Depression 67
Chapter 4. A Worse Depression: Black Americans in the 1930s 79
Chapter 5. To Be Old, Sick, and Poor 95
Chapter 6. The Forgotten Children 113
Part III: Reactions to the Depression 121
Chapter 7. Attitudes toward Relief 123
Chapter 8. The Conservative 143