get them. Girls took the place of their mother, who was herself often working, as the custodian of smaller children and keeper of the home. “Ironically,” he noted, “the same family hardship that might weaken the self-reliance of a father could strengthen that quality in his child.”That’s in fact exactly what happened, writes Elder in
Children of the Great Depression
. As adolescents who suffered hardship during the ’30s grew into adulthood and middle age, Elder found, they showed no sign of the fatalism and reticence that marked people who were just a few years older. In fact, they became especially adaptable, family-oriented adults.
O N THE ROSTER of history’s truly crippling downturns—both inside and outside the United States—the Great Depression as experienced in America stands out for the extent to which society as a whole remained unified and refused reactionary measures. Perhaps the very depth and breadth of the crisis inspired that togetherness. The middle class identified with the poor more than the rich during that time—and generally supported steps to help those brought low in the downturn. And to a large degree, the federal government with one hand protected the rights and interests of the downtrodden, and with the other, the property of the wealthy.
Nonetheless,extremism and rancor did grow stronger throughout the period. Race-based job discrimination became fiercer, and lynchings, as they had in the 1880s and ’90s, became more commonplace. A
New Republic
story in 1931 noted that “[d]ust had been blown from the shotgun, the whip, and the noose, and Ku Klux practices were being resumed in the certainty that dead men not only tell no tales but create vacancies.”
Father Charles Coughlin, known as “The Radio Priest,” regularly spoke to some 30 million or 40 million Americans—the largest radio audience in the world at the time—about the depravity ofCommunists, international financiers, and Jews. Coughlin praised Adolf Hitler and other Fascists, seeing in them a strength and moral purity absent from capitalist democrats; as the Depression stretched on, Coughlin became more strident. The Louisiana governor, senator, and presidential hopeful Huey Long, a champion of the poor and the working class, grew in stature. He denounced “imperialistic banking control” and preached a radical populism, rooted in aggressive wealth redistribution, with little respect for democratic principles.
With the onset of World War II and the industrial production that it required, the Depression finally ended (conditions had been improving slowly in the years before the war). But it left the United States ineffably changed. In some respects, the Depression accelerated the evolution of the economy. Innovation was in fact extremely rapid throughout the 1930s, and the period saw an end to the widespread use of domestic servants and the beginnings of an appliance revolution. (John Maynard Keynes wrote at the time that one of the problems of the Depression was “technological unemployment,” due to the “discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.”)
More important were the cultural and political changes that resulted from the social and economic environment of the Depression. Family crowding and the deprivations of city life eventually catalyzed a burst of suburbanization after growth returned. Political reforms—including the Glass-Steagall Act and other banking measures—reshaped the country’s business and labor environment, and provided a foundation for decades of growth and social peace. A Democratic political majority, for better or worse, was cemented into place for decades. And the culture was imbued with a spirit of thrift that would last a generation.
THE 1970S
The troubles and turbulence of the 1970s stemmed from many sources. Amidst presidential scandal and military retreat, the United States seemed to have lost its
Children of the Great Depression
. As adolescents who suffered hardship during the ’30s grew into adulthood and middle age, Elder found, they showed no sign of the fatalism and reticence that marked people who were just a few years older. In fact, they became especially adaptable, family-oriented adults.
O N THE ROSTER of history’s truly crippling downturns—both inside and outside the United States—the Great Depression as experienced in America stands out for the extent to which society as a whole remained unified and refused reactionary measures. Perhaps the very depth and breadth of the crisis inspired that togetherness. The middle class identified with the poor more than the rich during that time—and generally supported steps to help those brought low in the downturn. And to a large degree, the federal government with one hand protected the rights and interests of the downtrodden, and with the other, the property of the wealthy.
Nonetheless,extremism and rancor did grow stronger throughout the period. Race-based job discrimination became fiercer, and lynchings, as they had in the 1880s and ’90s, became more commonplace. A
New Republic
story in 1931 noted that “[d]ust had been blown from the shotgun, the whip, and the noose, and Ku Klux practices were being resumed in the certainty that dead men not only tell no tales but create vacancies.”
Father Charles Coughlin, known as “The Radio Priest,” regularly spoke to some 30 million or 40 million Americans—the largest radio audience in the world at the time—about the depravity ofCommunists, international financiers, and Jews. Coughlin praised Adolf Hitler and other Fascists, seeing in them a strength and moral purity absent from capitalist democrats; as the Depression stretched on, Coughlin became more strident. The Louisiana governor, senator, and presidential hopeful Huey Long, a champion of the poor and the working class, grew in stature. He denounced “imperialistic banking control” and preached a radical populism, rooted in aggressive wealth redistribution, with little respect for democratic principles.
With the onset of World War II and the industrial production that it required, the Depression finally ended (conditions had been improving slowly in the years before the war). But it left the United States ineffably changed. In some respects, the Depression accelerated the evolution of the economy. Innovation was in fact extremely rapid throughout the 1930s, and the period saw an end to the widespread use of domestic servants and the beginnings of an appliance revolution. (John Maynard Keynes wrote at the time that one of the problems of the Depression was “technological unemployment,” due to the “discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.”)
More important were the cultural and political changes that resulted from the social and economic environment of the Depression. Family crowding and the deprivations of city life eventually catalyzed a burst of suburbanization after growth returned. Political reforms—including the Glass-Steagall Act and other banking measures—reshaped the country’s business and labor environment, and provided a foundation for decades of growth and social peace. A Democratic political majority, for better or worse, was cemented into place for decades. And the culture was imbued with a spirit of thrift that would last a generation.
THE 1970S
The troubles and turbulence of the 1970s stemmed from many sources. Amidst presidential scandal and military retreat, the United States seemed to have lost its
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