“It Ain’t Hardly Worth the Trouble to Go on Living”

2021 ◽  
pp. 53-90
Author(s):  
Justin Mellette
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Erskine Caldwell ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Tenant Farming

Chapter 2 focuses on Erskine Caldwell and seeks to complicate understandings of his best-known works Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre. Though often derided for mocking the poor and using them as comic relief, Caldwell works to instil a sense of anger in readers as he reveals the economic plight of tenant farming during the Great Depression. In addition, the chapter looks at Caldwell's nonfiction work, including his phototext You Have Seen Their Faces, written with photographer Margaret Bourke-White, and contrasts its cultural context with the comparatively better known Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. In addition, the chapter considers Caldwell's journalism, which originally raised national attention to the plight of the farmers he later immortalized in his fiction. Finally, the chapter closes by considering Caldwell’s later career and fall from critical favour.

scholarly journals The “Hidden Depression” that never really went away

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-40
Author(s):  
Anaru Eketone
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Serious Disease

Covid-19 is a unique conjunction of a serious disease pandemic coupled with a serious economic crisis. I took the opportunity during level four lockdown to catch up on some reading. Two books in particular discussed the previous two named depressions that Aotearoa New Zealand went through. Children of the Poor by John A. Lee (1973) dealt with poverty in Dunedin following the “Long Depression” of the late 19th century and The Slump by Tony Simpson (1990) looked at the lead-up to the “Great Depression”, its effects and its lasting legacy.

Photo-Narratives and the Poor White Self since the FSA

2019 ◽  
pp. 25-62
Author(s):  
Sarah Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Dorothy Allison ◽  
Farm Security Administration ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Contemporary Life ◽  
Poor White ◽  
The Relationship

After briefly outlining the work of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographers and writers during the Great Depression, the chapter turns to rephotography projects, namely that of Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson, to explore the FSA’s legacy. The chapter interrogates the relationship and tension between aesthetics and activism as it examines several contemporary photo-narratives focused on Appalachia. In addition to critically discussing the work of Appalshop, it questions the representation of the poor in photo-narratives by, amongst others, Shelby Lee Adams, Tim Barnwell and Susan Lipper. The chapter focuses on questions of counter-visuality as it presents contemporary life-writing by writers such as Dorothy Allison, Rick Bragg, Barbara Robinette Moss and Janisse Ray, as a vehicle for producing counter-visual legacies.

Bank Portfolios and Bank Failures During the Great Depression: Chicago

1986 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 455-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milton Esbitt
Keyword(s):  
Discriminant Analysis ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Bank Failures ◽  
Multiple Discriminant Analysis ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Contemporary Writers ◽  
Poor Management

Bank failures in Chicago during 1930–1932 are examined to determine whether failures were attributable to poor management practices or to worsening economic conditions. Non-Loop state-chartered banks were divided into those which did not fail and those which failed in 1930, 1931, and 1932. Portfolio variables which contemporary writers held were indicative of poor management practices are used in a multiple discriminant analysis. Using semiannual bank call reports from December 1927 through December 1929, support was found for the poor management hypothesis only for banks destined to fail in 1931

Divergent Paths of Historical Progress

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Motoe Sasaki
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
The United States ◽  
Women Missionaries ◽  
New Women ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
The World ◽  
Entire World

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, American New Women became more aware of the widening psychological gap between them and their Chinese counterparts. This chapter explores the transformation that occurred among these women regarding their understanding of historical progress, perceptions of their country, and ideas about their own role in China. It was also during this same period, one of national revolution, that the Great Depression exposed the failure of the capitalist economic system (strongly associated with the United States) to the entire world and triggered a change in American New Women missionaries' views toward the place their country occupied in the historical progress of the world. As a result, Chinese xin nüxing began turning their interest away from becoming like American New Women missionaries—urban middle-class professionals. Instead, they became increasingly sympathetic to the plight of the poor, especially those in the countryside, and to the idea of socialism.

The Birth of Modern Entitlement Programs: Reports from the Field and Implications for Welfare Policy

1996 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Paul Hill ◽  
Elizabeth C. Hirschman ◽  
John F. Bauman
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Consumer Behavior ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Primary Analysis ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Present Decade

One of the most controversial public policy debates of the present decade involves entitlement programs for the poor. Many of these programs originated during the widespread poverty of the Great Depression. The authors reconstruct what consumers experienced during the Great Depression through a primary analysis of observations of consumer behavior, which are preserved in archival reports, and a secondary analysis of letters expressing the consumers’ plight that the consumers themselves authored and sent to various government officials. The four themes resulting from the analyses of these data are (1) consumption conditions, (2) labor as an expendable resource, (3) class and ethnic conflict, and (4) return to self-sufficient modes of production. The broader implications of these historic events for consumer researchers interested in current poverty issues and public policy are provided in the conclusion.

Remaking the Heartland

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Objective Observer ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Changing Times ◽  
Middle West

For many Americans, the Middle West is a vast unknown. This book sets out to rectify this. It shows how the region has undergone extraordinary social transformations over the past half-century and proven itself surprisingly resilient in the face of such hardships as the Great Depression and the movement of residents to other parts of the country. It examines the heartland's reinvention throughout the decades and traces the social and economic factors that have helped it to survive and prosper. The book points to the critical strength of the region's social institutions established between 1870 and 1950—the market towns, farmsteads, one-room schoolhouses, townships, rural cooperatives, and manufacturing centers that have adapted with the changing times. It focuses on farmers' struggles to recover from the Great Depression well into the 1950s, the cultural redefinition and modernization of the region's image that occurred during the 1950s and 1960s, the growth of secondary and higher education, the decline of small towns, the redeployment of agribusiness, and the rapid expansion of edge cities. Drawing arguments from extensive interviews and evidence from the towns and counties of the Midwest, the book provides a unique perspective as both an objective observer and someone who grew up there. It offers an accessible look at the humble yet strong foundations that have allowed the region to endure undiminished.

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