LibGuides: History & Biography: The Great Depression: Life in Hard Times, 1929-1942

General History

Search our Catalog by Subject for: Depressions 1929.

The Great Depression by World Book, Inc Staff (Contribution by)
Call Number: 973.916 GRE
ISBN: 9780716615057
Publication Date: 2010-11-01

A brief illustrated history of the period.
The Depression years : as reported by the New York Times by Arleen Keylin (Editor)
Call Number: R909.82 DEP
ISBN: 0405095465
Publication Date: 1976-01-01

Reproduces pages from The New York Times. Non-circulating

50 Interesting Facts about the Great Depression
Go to: https://www.factretriever.com/great-depression-facts
The Great Depression
Includes several essays on the topic from the Modern American Poetry website.
Go to: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm
The Crash of '29
The New York Times' coverage of the 1929 stock market collapse retropective.
Go to: http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/index-1929-crash.html
Great Depression
Great Depression as explained in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
Go to: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GreatDepression.html

Prohibition [DVD] by Burns, Ken
Call Number: DOCUMENTARY PRO DVD
ISBN: 1415760284
Publication Date: 2011

The debate continues regarding the effect of Prohibition and its repeal in 1933 on society.

The New Deal, Politics and Politicians

Search our Catalog by Keyword for: New Deal

The WPA Guide to America by Bernard A. Weisberger; Federal Writers' Project Staff (Contribution by)
Call Number: 917.304 W
ISBN: 0394536649
Publication Date: 1985-01-01
FDR and the American Crisis by Albert Marrin
Call Number: 923.172 MAR
ISBN: 9780385753593
Publication Date: 2015-01-06
America 1933 : the Great Depression, Lorena Hickok, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the shaping of the New Deal by Michael Golay
Call Number: 973.917 GOL
ISBN: 9781439196014
Publication Date: 2013-06-04

FDR Presidential Library & Museum
Resources for Students include The Periodic Table of the New Deal.
Go to: https://fdrlibrary.org/resources-for-students
The New Deal – Related Web Sites
Provides a list of websites relating to the New Deal era.
Go to: https://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/new-deal.html#websites

Social Conditions

Search our Catalog by Keyword for: Dust Bowl.

Women of Valor : the struggle against the great depression as told in their own life stories by Bernard Sternsher (Editor); Judith Sealander (Editor); Jorge Colombo (Illustrator)
Call Number: 303.48 W
ISBN: 0929587340
Publication Date: 1990-08-01
To Ask for an Equal Chance : African Americans in the Great Depression by Cheryl Greenberg
Call Number: 305.896 GRE
ISBN: 9780742551893
Publication Date: 2010-10-16
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? by Milton Meltzer
Call Number: 330 .973 MEL
ISBN: 0816023727
Publication Date: 1990-11-01

Hear the anthem of the Great Depression, the song Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? at NPR.
Go to: http://www.npr.org/2008/11/15/96654742/a-depression-era-anthem-for-our-times
Dancing in the Dark by Morris Dickstein
Call Number: 973.91 DIC
ISBN: 9780393072259
Publication Date: 2009-09-14

"shows how our worst economic crisis, as it eroded American individualism and punctured the American dream, produced in the 1930s some of the greatest writing, photography, and mass entertainment ever seen in this country."
Hard times; an Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel
Call Number: 973.91 T
Publication Date: 1970
A square meal : a Culinary History of the Great Depression by Jane Ziegelman; Andrew Coe
Call Number: 641.597 ZIE
ISBN: 9780062216410
Publication Date: 2016-08-16
Down & out in the Great Depression : letters from the forgotten man by Robert S. McElvaine (Editor)
Call Number: 973.91 DOW
ISBN: 9780807858912
Publication Date: 2008-02-25
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt : Letters from Children of the Great Depression by Robert Cohen (Editor)
Call Number: 973.917 DEA
ISBN: 0807854131
Publication Date: 2002-10-28

America in the 1930s
explores the 1930s in print, film, radio; includes a timeline from 1929 to 1940.
Go to: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/front.html
A Case of Unemployment
An economic discussion of the 1930s.
Go to: http://ingrimayne.com/econ/EconomicCatastrophe/GreatDepression.html
Surviving the Dust Bowl (PBS video)
In 1931 the rains stopped and the “black blizzards” began. PBS The American Experience series.

The South During the Depression

See also: The Textile Heritage of Gaston County
Go to:http://gastonlibrary.libguides.com/textileheritageofgastoncounty.

The Great Depression - How We Coped, Worked and Played by Margaret G. Bigger (Editor); Lexie Little Hill (Illustrator)
Call Number: 338.542 GRE
ISBN: 1893597040
Publication Date: 2001-10-01
Mama's Boarding House : Life in the South during the Great Depression by Sidney Bolick
Call Number: 920.71 Bolick NC
ISBN: 1552125173
Publication Date: 2000-12-01
Testing the New Deal : the general textile strike of 1934 in the American South by Janet Christine Irons
Call Number: 331.892 IRO
ISBN: 025202527X
Publication Date: 2000-02-29
North Carolina and the New Deal by Anthony J. Badger
Call Number: 330.9756 B N.C.
ISBN: 0865261865
Publication Date: 1981-01-01
The Way We Lived in North Carolina by Elizabeth A. Fenn; Joe A. Mobley (Editor); North Carolina, Office of Archives and History Staff (Contribution by); Thomas H. Clayton; Peter H. Wood
Call Number: 975.6 WAY N.C.
ISBN: 0807828149
Publication Date: 2003-12-08

Express Lanes & Country Roads is reprinted in this volume, along with four other books.

Photographs/Illustrations

The Great Depression by T. H. Watkins
Call Number: 973.917 WAT
ISBN: 0316924539
Publication Date: 1993-10-01
Hard Luck Blues : Roots Music Photographs from the Great Depression by Rich Remsberg
Call Number: 779 REM
ISBN: 9780252035241
Publication Date: 2010-03-08
This Fabulous Century, Volume 4: 1930-1940. by Time-Life Books
Call Number: 917.303 T v. 4
ISBN: 0356040933
Publication Date: 1969-
The New Deal Art Projects; an Anthology of Memoirs by Francis V. O'Connor (Editor)
Call Number: 709.73 N
ISBN: 0874741130
Publication Date: 1972-04-01

Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives
These photographs form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944.
1930s-40s in Color
photo collection from the Library of Congress
Depression Art Gallery
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/artgallery.htm
See also: A Photo Essay on the Depression. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/photoessay.htm
Bayard Morgan Wootten Photographic Collection
A small collection of her photos of North Carolina, circa 1870-1988 (bulk 1904-1954), many from the 1930's.

Classics of the Great Depression

The Maltese Falcon 1930 Dashiell Hammett

Author: Gaston County Public Library
Title: The Great Depression: Life in Hard Times, 1929 - 1942
URL: http://gastonlibrary.libguides.com/history-bios/the-great-depression-life-in-hard-times-1929-1942.
Revised: 23 Jul 2019

History & Biography

Other Useful Research Guides

Movies, Music, Art, and Literature of the 1930's