Encyclopedia of the Great Depression: A-K


Book Description

These volumes discuss depression-era politics, government, business, economics, literature, the arts, and more.




The New Deal


Book Description

From first to last the New Deal was a work in progress, a patchwork of often contradictory ideas.




FDR's Folly


Book Description

The Great Depression and the New Deal. For generations, the collective American consciousness has believed that the former ruined the country and the latter saved it. Endless praise has been heaped upon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for masterfully reining in the Depression’s destructive effects and propping up the country on his New Deal platform. In fact, FDR has achieved mythical status in American history and is considered to be, along with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents of all time. But would the Great Depression have been so catastrophic had the New Deal never been implemented? In FDR’s Folly, historian Jim Powell argues that it was in fact the New Deal itself, with its shortsighted programs, that deepened the Great Depression, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly. You’ll discover in alarming detail how FDR’s federal programs hurt America more than helped it, with effects we still feel today, including: • How Social Security actually increased unemployment • How higher taxes undermined good businesses • How new labor laws threw people out of work • And much more This groundbreaking book pulls back the shroud of awe and the cloak of time enveloping FDR to prove convincingly how flawed his economic policies actually were, despite his good intentions and the astounding intellect of his circle of advisers. In today’s turbulent domestic and global environment, eerily similar to that of the 1930s, it’s more important than ever before to uncover and understand the truth of our history, lest we be doomed to repeat it.




The Great Depression and New Deal


Book Description

The Great Depression forced the United States to adopt policies at odds with its political traditions. This title looks at the background to the Depression, its social impact, and at the various governmental attempts to deal with the crisis.




The Concise Encyclopedia of The Great Recession 2007-2010


Book Description

This historical and factual encyclopedia provides the necessary resources for understanding the recession begun in 2007. It spells out the recession-related activities and events of the past two years to better inform the reader as he or she plans future moves for themselves and for their families, friends, and colleagues. This book provides the most current, accurate, and sufficiently detailed explanations of the economic see-saw in 2008, 2009, and into 2010. It includes entries on key persons, companies, government programs, financial instruments, and institutions.




Faulkner and the Great Depression


Book Description

“Remarkably,” writes Ted Atkinson, “during a period roughly corresponding to the Great Depression, Faulkner wrote the novels and stories most often read, taught, and examined by scholars.” This is the first comprehensive study to consider his most acclaimed works in the context of those hard times. Atkinson sees Faulkner’s Depression-era novels and stories as an ideological battleground--in much the same way that 1930s America was. With their contrapuntal narratives that present alternative accounts of the same events, these works order multiple perspectives under the design of narrative unity. Thus, Faulkner’s ongoing engagement with cultural politics gives aesthetic expression to a fundamental ideological challenge of Depression-era America: how to shape what FDR called a “new order of things” out of such conflicting voices as the radical left, the Popular Front, and the Southern Agrarians. Focusing on aesthetic decadence in Mosquitoes and dispossession in The Sound and the Fury, Atkinson shows how Faulkner anticipated and mediated emergent sociocultural forces of the late 1920s and early 1930s. In Sanctuary; Light in August; Absalom, Absalom!; and “Dry September,” Faulkner explores social upheaval (in the form of lynching and mob violence), fascism, and the appeal of strong leadership during troubled times. As I Lay Dying, The Hamlet, “Barn Burning,” and “The Tall Men” reveal his “ambivalent agrarianism”--his sympathy for, yet anxiety about, the legions of poor and landless farmers and sharecroppers. In The Unvanquished, Faulkner views Depression concerns through the historical lens of the Civil War, highlighting the forces of destruction and reconstruction common to both events. Faulkner is no proletarian writer, says Atkinson. However, the dearth of overt references to the Depression in his work is not a sign that Faulkner was out of touch with the times or consumed with aesthetics to the point of ignoring social reality. Through his comprehensive social vision and his connections to the rural South, Hollywood, and New York, Faulkner offers readers remarkable new insight into Depression concerns.




Collector's Encyclopedia of Depression Glass


Book Description

A colorfully illustrated collectors guide to depression glass.




America's Great Depression


Book Description

This book is an analysis of the causes of the Great Depression of 1929. The author concludes that the Depression was caused not by laissez-faire capitalism, but by government intervention in the economy. The author argues that the Hoover administration violated the tradition of previous American depressions by intervening in an unprecedented way and that the result was a disastrous prolongation of unemployment and depression so that a typical business cycle became a lingering disease.




The Forgotten Man


Book Description

It's difficult today to imagine how America survived the Great Depression. Only through the stories of the common people who struggled during that era can we really understand how the nation endured. These are the people at the heart of Amity Shlaes's insightful and inspiring history of one of the most crucial events of the twentieth century. In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes, one of the nation's most respected economic commentators, offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. Rejecting the old emphasis on the New Deal, she turns to the neglected and moving stories of individual Americans, and shows how through brave leadership they helped establish the steadfast character we developed as a nation. Some of those figures were well known, at least in their day—Andrew Mellon, the Greenspan of the era; Sam Insull of Chicago, hounded as a scapegoat. But there were also unknowns: the Schechters, a family of butchers in Brooklyn who dealt a stunning blow to the New Deal; Bill W., who founded Alcoholics Anonymous in the name of showing that small communities could help themselves; and Father Divine, a black charismatic who steered his thousands of followers through the Depression by preaching a Gospel of Plenty. Shlaes also traces the mounting agony of the New Dealers themselves as they discovered their errors. She shows how both Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt failed to understand the prosperity of the 1920s and heaped massive burdens on the country that more than offset the benefit of New Deal programs. The real question about the Depression, she argues, is not whether Roosevelt ended it with World War II. It is why the Depression lasted so long. From 1929 to 1940, federal intervention helped to make the Depression great—in part by forgetting the men and women who sought to help one another. Authoritative, original, and utterly engrossing, The Forgotten Man offers an entirely new look at one of the most important periods in our history. Only when we know this history can we understand the strength of American character today.




The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History


Book Description

As the global economic crisis that developed in the year 2008 makes clear, it is essential for educated individuals to understand the history that underlies contemporary economic developments. This encyclopedia will offer students and scholars access to information about the concepts, institutions/organizations, events, and individuals that have shaped the history of economics, business, and labor from the origins of what later became the United States in an earlier age of globalization and the expansion of capitalism to the present. It will include entries that explore the changing character of capitalism from the seventeenth century to the present; that cover the evolution of business practices and organizations over the same time period; that describe changes in the labor force as legally free workers replaced a labor force dominated by slaves and indentures; that treat the means by which workers sought to better their lives; and that deal with government policies and practices that affected economic activities, business developments, and the lives of working people. Readers will be able to find readily at hand information about key economic concepts and theories, major economists, diverse sectors of the economy, the history of economic and financial crises, major business organizations and their founders, labor organizations and their leaders, and specific government policies and judicial rulings that have shaped US economic and labor history. Readers will also be guided to the best and most recent scholarly works related to the subject covered by the entry. Because of the broad chronological span covered by the encyclopedia and the breadth of its subjects, it should prove useful to history students, economics majors, school of business entrants as well as to those studying public policy and administration.