Memoirs Great Depression

This title offers a first-person diary account of living through the Great Depression, with haunting parallels to our own time. Benjamin Roth was born in New York City in 1894. When the stock market crashed in 1929, he had been practicing law for approximately ten years, largely representing local businesses. After nearly two years, he began to grasp the magnitude of what had happened to American economic life, and he began writing down his impressions in a diary that he maintained intermittently until he died in 1978.

The first full-length biography of the Nobel laureate to appear in a quarter century, Mad at the World illuminates what has made the work of John Steinbeck an enduring part of the literary canon: his capacity for empathy. Angered by the plight of the Dust Bowl migrants who were starving even as they toiled to harvest California's limitless bounty and appalled by the country's refusal to recognize the humanity common to all of its citizens, Steinbeck took a stand against social injustice - paradoxically given his inherent misanthropy.

For four consecutive years Shirley Temple was the world’s box-office champion, a record never equaled. By early 1935 her mail was reported as four thousand letters a week, and hers was the second-most popular girl’s name in the country. What distinguished Shirley Temple from every other Hollywood star of the period - and everyone since - was how brilliantly she shone.

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.

The memoirs collected in this book tell of an America where families and neighbors 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.

On December 7th, 1955, Kitty McInerney lay dying in a New York hospital bed. The 47-year-old Irish immigrant, suffering from severe toxemia, was preparing for an emergency c-section to give birth to her 17th child. As a Catholic priest performed her last rites, Kitty succumbed to a rare moment of quiet reflection.

It’s tough being an author these days, and it’s getting harder. But, as Jason Boog shows in a rich mix of history and politics, this is not the first period when writers have struggled to scratch a living. Between accounts of contemporary layoffs and shrinking paychecks for authors and publishing professionals are stories from the 1930s when writers, hard hit by the Great Depression, fought to create unions and New Deal projects like the Federal Writers Project.

When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship—and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom.

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.

In 1932 Eleanor Roosevelt entered the claustrophobic, duty-bound existence of the first lady with dread. By that time she had put her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her and developed an independent life - now threatened by the public role she would be forced to play. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press: Lorena Hickok. Over the next 30 years, until Eleanor's death, the two women carried on an extraordinary relationship.

Written by someone who has "lived it", this first audiobook by Ray B. Rogers brings home the unique culture of Western North Carolina during the Great Depression. From “Justifiable Homicide” (about chickens, naturally) to “The County Home”, Ray tells it like it is, bringing the listener back to a time when folks worked harder, got along better, and lived closely with the environment.  

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.

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 this deeply moving and resourceful memoir, beloved actor-director and New York Times best-selling author Joe Pantoliano takes aim at the stigma attached to what he calls “brain dis-ease” by writing candidly and humorously about his own journey through clinical depression and addiction.

Christmas is eagerly awaited by Lulu, a young girl living in a small Wisconsin town during the Great Depression. Anticipation is transformed into anxiety when Daddy loses his job, doubts about Santa flicker, and that Shirley Temple doll seems further away than ever. Mama reveals her own brutal Christmas as an orphan, adding new worries. But it's Lulu's deep faith and vibrant hope that keeps her looking forward to each new day and the glorious gift of Christmas.

Some Americans who were born and raised during the Great Depression, have passed from this life although many still remain with us. Many famous books, movies and television shows have covered stories from that generation and many of them continue to fascinate the current generations living today. Stories of getting by in the face of adversities during The Great Depression and of the bond between family and friends are inspiring and they often demonstrate the triumph of the human spirit and the power of human love.

Like most Americans at the time, Plennie Wingo was hit hard by the effects of the Great Depression. When the bank foreclosed on his small restaurant in Abilene, he found himself suddenly penniless with nowhere left to turn. After months of struggling to feed his family on wages he earned digging ditches in the Texas sun, Plennie decided it was time to do something extraordinary - something to resurrect the spirit of adventure and optimism he felt he'd lost. He decided to walk around the world - backward.

At 95 years old, Marjorie "Madge" Ellen Street finally gets to writing down and telling her life story. At the end of the story, she has a few "featurette" short stories, as well as an interview with her grandson Ryan, with some deep questions about the lessons of her life, a short story about her second husband Peter Street, written by his son Mike Street, birth to 44 and a half, July 1963. Finally, a bonus short story, to Peter’s life story, age 44 and a half to 73, as told by Madge Street.

The men and women honored in Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation speak in this collection of letters from and about the Depression and World War II.