Four voices from the Great Depression
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What was life like during the Great Depression?
We seek to leave you seeing the world anew.
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.
Most of us have had no breakfast. Some have had scant rations for over a year. Hunger makes a human being lapse into a state of lethargy, especially city hunger.
The Great Depression was one of the worst economic disasters in modern history. It started in 1929 and lasted through the next decade.
Is there any place else in the world where a human being is supposed to go hungry amidst plenty, without an outcry, without protest? Where only the boldest steal or kill for bread, and the timid crawl the streets.
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.
Henry Wright went looking for adventure in the Great Depression.
Riding the rails from coast to coast, he learned things about himself and the world. With a certain amount of pride, he called himself a hobo, bouncing from city to city, seeking his fortune.
Is this thing on? Oh, hello. Maridel Lasur was a writer born and raised in the Midwest.
I've lived in cities for many months, broke, without help, too timid to get in the bread lines.
Maridel spent the Depression in unemployment offices and soup kitchens, talking to people, mostly women, documenting what she saw and heard.
I was so broke. Quite often, I was with no money in my pocket. The most I ever had is maybe one or two dollars. The least was, well, normally I got 10, 15 cents. You can call me Fong.
How did hunger affect people's lives during the Great Depression?
Fong spent the Great Depression in San Francisco's Chinatown. He experienced the era at the street level and the everyday minutia of economic struggle.
Hello, I'm Dorothy Haidt. In a strange way, everybody had a feeling of common suffering. There was a kind of sense that everybody's having a hard time.
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. But as luck would have it, the Depression would follow her there.
Henry, Meridel, Fong, and Dorothy's stories, captured in oral histories, diaries, and essays, give us a window into what it was like to live through this time, a moment that often gets reduced to one archetype of American suffering. Their stories, their voices, are the ones we don't generally hear.
So with that, we give you Four Lives of the Great Depression.
This week on Up First, President Trump heads to China. On the agenda, Taiwan, AI, and the war with Iran, a close Chinese ally and trade partner. One big question, will Trump ask China to pressure Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz? We're reporting from Beijing on a week of major news that affects the world and your wallet. On Up First, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. In a strange way, everybody had a feeling of common suffering. There was a kind of sense that everybody's having a hard time. You didn't have a feeling that some people were making it and some were suffering. But at the same time, everybody had to compete with everybody for the scarce things that there were. My fellow citizens, this broadcast tonight marks the beginning of the mobilization of the whole nation for a great undertaking to provide security for those of our citizens and their families who through no fault of their own
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What was life like during the Great Depression?
0:00–3:08
2
How did hunger affect people's lives during the Great Depression?
3:08–10:56
3
What were the key experiences shared by individuals during the Great Depression?
10:56–12:06
4
Who were the four voices featured in the Great Depression stories?
12:06–14:09
5
What challenges did Maridel face while documenting the Great Depression?
14:09–19:28
6
How did Dorothy's experiences in Harlem shape her perspective on the Great Depression?
19:28–19:36