This second issue of 2024 features articles which continue an extended series on the 1930s, the Great Depression era:

• The Great Depression Years (1931-1934). This is a series of articles discussing the highlights (or low lights, as it were) of the first five years of the 1930s. Every generation before the era known as The Great Depression had experienced some sort of economic woe – some more than once, such as the various nineteenth century panics. The cycle was almost predictable – about every five to ten years the economy bottomed out and many a citizen struggled to make ends meet as unemployment increased. The slide might be rather precipitous and the recovery usually slow. It was just something that happened periodically.

However, 1929 and much of the following decade was different – the great crash came hard and fast, affected almost every American and the damage it inflicted was far worse than any other such event in the nation’s history. The 1920s had roared and by 1928 Herbert Hoover, hoping to capitalize on the prosperity overseen by his soon-to-be-predecessor Calvin Coolidge, was promising a “chicken in every pot”. That, however, wasn’t even close to how the 1930s would turn out.

• Brother Can You Spare a Dime?: Getting By in Desperate Times: Part 1 - Every generation before 1929 had experienced a time of mass unemployment. Often it happened several times in one man’s life span. . . Some lasted longer than others and brought greater hardships. Usually the slide into the pit was steep, and the climb out of the depths slow. But the depression that began in 1929 was different. It came on harder and faster, it engulfed a larger part of the population, it lasted much longer, and it did far more and far worse damage than any before it. No one can understand the America of today without knowing something about the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Enjoy the issue! The next issue will continue the theme with lots more stories, including how to find more records from the era, how Americans dealt with the financial hardships, and for those living on the Great Plains, the devastating Dust Bowl. I haven’t decided whether there will be three or four issues in this series… stay tuned!