Randa Abdelfattah (Host)

Radiolab adventures right on the edge of what we think we know, wherever you get podcasts.

This is America in Pursuit, a limited-run series from ThruLine and NPR.

I'm Randa Abdelfattah.

Each week, we bring you stories about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the United States that began 250 years ago.

There are no jobs.

The Great Depression was one of the worst economic disasters in modern history.

It started in 1929 and lasted through the next decade.

It was marked by massive unemployment, hunger, homelessness, and a general sense that the country's future was in peril.

It's too terrible to see this animal terror in each other's eyes.

The Great Depression left a lasting imprint on the people who lived it.

So today on the show, we want to immerse you in the era and let the people who lived through it tell their own stories.

Stories captured in oral histories, diaries, and essays brought to life through reenactment.

Four people, four vastly different experiences from different ethnic and racial backgrounds from all over the United States.

Is this thing on?

Oh, hello.

Maridel Lasur was a writer born and raised in the Midwest.

Maridel spent the Depression in unemployment offices and soup kitchens, talking to people, mostly women, documenting what she saw and heard.

Dorothy Height grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania.

And when the Great Depression hit home, she was eager to escape to the big city for college.

She moved to Harlem in New York.