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"Hard Times" by Studs Terkel462 pagesShort review: Excellent book. Was the Great Depression a man made thing. I'm neither Democrat or Republican. That makes it a sort of unique "historical time capsule".2) Terkel wrote very little in this book; a one-liner here, a question there, a short paragraph somewhere else by way of explanation. They were called deputies.
You did not mention it to them."Sally Rand (p.174) "I truly believe we shall have another Depression. We weren't talking revolution; we were talking jobs."Mary Owsley (p. Aunt Lila and her husband were the first in our family, and the last, to go on the WPA. He was an intelligent man. The Unions then and now are not all good, and not all bad.
Yes. Nobody is really sure. They were, in many cases, matters of life and death." For me, an excellent, wonderfully challenging book. Did everybody suffer. These range across all social strata, and -in outlook and political sympathies- cover the broad political spectrum. Of this vast amount of material, he whittled it down to just over one hundred and sixty unique individuals.
His skill, or genius if you like, was the way he gently prodded people here and there, and then wisely shut up and let them do the talking. It's hard to be phony when you haven't got anything. Was it perfect. 111) "People would put off government aid as long as possible. I'm open to suggestions. He had tremendous support through his wife.
It's a lot more complicated. It gave Negroes a chance to have an office to work out of with a typewriter."Yose Yglesias (p. Warmth. Did everybody see that. They felt it was the start of a perpetual boom that would carry us on and on forever to new plateaus."Ruby Bates (p.92) "Roosevelt touched the temper of the black community. But therein lies a magnificent, touching charm.I'll give you just a few examples amongst a great many.
That it is. No. It is a cacophony. But something had to be done. What am I. Of his many public programs, some people curse them as wasteful and frivolous, and mere ploys and bribes to ensure political re-election.Others however are clearly sincerely grateful -emotional- to this day for those Federal initiatives, and imply that without them, they might have starved.6) If, like me, you are interested in the class struggle, and the emergence of the Trade unions from reviled rabble to formidable labour movements, and if, like me you are suspicious that there are those (then and now) who seek to fan the flames of class divisions for their own selfish ends, then you will find much to ponder.
Christopher Lasch (p.340) put into words an impression I've been getting myself. I credit it with softening somewhat my attitude towards FDR's dealing with the Great Depression. I think it leaves me with more compassion for the ordinary people and some of the politicians of the Great Depression. Yes. Was there bitterness and great anger, hatred even. Ours was a bewilderment, not an anger. Despite the hardship, on page 31 he says:"We weren't greatly agitated in terms of society. Were people used and abused.
They continually leap from the pages, and made me realize just how complex the truth of those times really is. No, many prospered.5) If, like me, you are interested in FDR, and what kind of person he really was, saviour or devil incarnate, or something in between, then you will find many tantalizing glimpses of him in this book. I don't envy him his job. I think people will just go out and take what they need.
Putting all his scattered comments and questions together, he still probably wrote less than 20 pages out of the 462. There are many shades of gray to try and understand. Oh yeah."Aaron Barkham (p.204) "The county sheriff had a hundred strike breakers. Terkel interviewed hundreds and hundreds of folk. No.
Their impoverished condition somehow made them very real people. Could it have been prevented, ameliorated. Compassion, idealism, sincerity. That's just puttin' it mild. Humiliated. And often failed. It's too easy to totally condemn FDR and the WPA, from the comfort of the twenty first century. He couldn't see why as wealthy a country as this is, that there was any sense in so many people starving to death, when so much of it, wheat and everything else, was being poured into the Ocean."Country Joe McDonald (p.52) "I travel around and talk to some of the Mexican migrant workers.
Consider Ed Paulsen, who was 14 in 1926. Both from personal experience and from hand-me-down anecdotes from parents and grandparents. While one can say, in the relative comfort of the sixties, that the New Deal measures were palliatives, they were more than that to the people living in the Thirties. It is full of people who tried. Some speakers hated him, others loved him.
I don't think there will be any more people queuing up on bread lines waiting to be fed by charity, God damn it.The middle class look upon the deprived smugly: the poor we'll have with us always. It is uniquely inspiring.4) The book contains a sinister background noise. Tried hard. I'm still no great fan of his, but, I can see and respect the many people in this book who undoubtedly were.
Who was at fault. The company paid him ten cents a ton on all the coal carried down the river, to keep the union out."This book gave me many vivid mental pictures. I was surprised, once I get my curious mitts on it, on several issues:1) how many people were actually involved. 46) "My husband was very bitter. Was it a complete failure. No. Shades of gray.Long review:If you are looking for a technical, theoretical, economic treatise of the causes of the Great Depression, then (heavens).
He then arranged the material very interestingly. Politically, nothing was black and white. However, it is also a lot more. This was considered a terrible tragedy, because it was charity. Check out some of my other reviews for that.This is a wandering, circuitous, snap shot in time of many different themes. I think the Depression had some kind of human qualities with it that we lack now." William Benton (p.69) "In 1929, most of your Wall Street manipulators called it The New Era.
The WPA and other projects introduced black people to handicrafts and trades. When people were talking about this book and "oral history", I kind of figured out it was a bunch of people remembering the Great Depression. He says:"To talk in retrospect is to do so coldly, and,in a sense, to falsify what people experienced in the Thirties. Guess I'd better go read a whole lot more books and see if I can find out. I mean when you're really down and out. One of the best I've read in the last few years. In a way, they seem closer to each other than most well-off middle-class people. I quote some examples further below.3) The book radiates humanity.
I think it's made my views a bit more balanced. don't buy this book. Not a sense of being particularly put upon. Somewhere in the middle lies the answer, and, more importantly, the crucial lessons for our generation, and the current fiercely debated Obama New Deal. Oh dear.
Love Studs Terkel. If only for his name. This is an excellent book for these economic times and it puts it all into perspective.
I read this book a couple years after it first came out. Everyone should read this book as it is so relevant to what is happening to the economy and the politics of our generation. I enjoyed it even more this time around. It really lets you know the difference between a recession and a depression. Great insight. Read this book.
It could have come in sooner, but it came in great condition. Thank you.
And grievances, just, unjust or whimsical, to spill. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his "The Good War": an Oral History of World War II.Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. I do not want to repeat that analysis here but, for the most part, the stories here confirm at least part of my thesis that the members of this generation, at the end, had some qualms about the lessons they took from the hard, hard struggles of the 1930's. In the present case the review of Hard Times: An Oral History Of The Great Depression serves a dual purpose.
For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. First, this book serves as Studs attempt to reflect on the lives of working people (circa 1980 here but the relevant points could be articulated in 2008 and thus can serve as a cautionary tale as well) from Studs' own generation who survived that event, fought World War II and did or did not benefit from the fact of American military victory and world economic preeminence, including those blacks and mountain whites who made the internal migratory trek from the South to the North. He includes other stories, like that of the society photographer Zerbe who took the Depression with blinkers on and never missed a beat and was barely aware that it had occurred or that of the lumpen proletarian extraordinaire Kid Pharaoh , who do not easily fit into any of those patterns but who nevertheless have stories to tell. As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most "ordinary" people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. I have mentioned elsewhere my own disagreement with the popular media title for this now fast dwindling generation.
That was really the period of their `fifteen minutes of fame'. One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel's interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories.
Again, kudos and adieu Studs. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes.
In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else's story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Secondly, always hovering in the background is one of Studs' preoccupations- the fate of his generation- `so-called "greatest generation".
Those stories, as told here, are certainly a mixed bag. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn't to fit his preoccupations and sense of order.
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