The Great Depression: A Diary
The Great Depression: A Diary
Benjamin Roth
When the stock market crashed in 1929, Benjamin Roth was a young lawyer
in Youngstown, Ohio. After he began to grasp the magnitude of what had
happened to American economic life, he decided to set down his
impressions in his diary.
This collection of those entries
reveals another side of the Great Depression—one lived through by
ordinary, middle-class Americans, who on a daily basis grappled with a
swiftly changing economy coupled with anxiety about the unknown future.
Roth’s depiction of life in time of widespread foreclosures, a
schizophrenic stock market, political unrest and mass unemployment seem
to speak directly to readers today.
We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises… I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started… And an enormous debt to boot!” - Henry Morganthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary, May 1939
ReplyDelete'eight years of this administration'
ReplyDeleteWell, we're just a touch over halfway there.
Jean
The Great Depression fan for two years under Hoover, then an additional eight under FDR. The tale told in this diary is harrowing.
ReplyDelete