Author: Cheryl Mullenbach
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Rating: WORTHY!
This is a fascinating story aimed at kids to help them understand that no matter how bad things got a couple of years ago with the Bush depression, things were far worse in the 1930’s as government cluelessness, the runaway greed of blind capitalism, and even nature herself conspired to put more than one in every ten people out of work. There were sad children, and marches on Washington put down with police brutality, and a heck of a lot of hungry people with no one to help them. It was like American became a third world country for a while.
People like to think of the previous decade to the depression as the roaring twenties when everyone had a good time, but as author Cheryl Mullenbach points out in this evocatively-imaged story, a lot of people were suffering an economic depression before the 1930s took hold. The USA has suffered for its expenditure on two recent Middle East wars, but it was the only nation in the world to profit from the two world wars of the twentieth century, coming out of each of them positioned as an economic and productive powerhouse.
While the outcome of World War Two cemented the US into a position of economic leadership that was to last for decades, the outcome of World War One was not so long-lasting. It went south rather quickly, but the effects of this permeated through the buoyant economy quite slowly and we’re not felt by everyone until the end of the decade as this book shows. What had begun as a binge for many reasonably well-off people had by the end of the decade, lost its oomph through foolish loans and speculation in stocks, and through a complete blind spot as to how the economy really works, and bone-headed reliance on business perks to solve social problems.
This book gives the story in nice bite-sized pieces and lays out the sorry mess from start to finish in seven chapters:
The 1920s Roaring Towards a Crash
America Looks to Its Leaders For Help
Broken Cities and Bread Lines - Urban Life
Droughts, Dust Storms, and Pest Plagues - Rural Life
Growing Up in Tough Times
Helping hands and a “New Deal” Awaken Hope
Finding Fun in Gloomy Times
Each of these sections has one or more activities associated with it, and the activities vary widely, so there is something for everyone in here somewhere. The range of topics covered is quite staggering, running from racism to malnutrition, to entertainment, to libraries, to sports, and on and on.
Economic factors and government and business blunders were not the only factors in play here, as I indicated. It seemed like nature unleashed the plagues of Egypt upon the US during this decade, too. There were floods, there were droughts, there were plagues of grasshoppers. None of this helped local economies. This book covers all of this and more, and is accompanied by very moving images of suffering and deprivation, although in view of the intended audience, there is nothing too graphical – just very sad.
It was humbling to read this – to realize, that no matter how badly-done-to any one of us might feel due to personal circumstances, back then, about ten times as many people had it worse. It’s a testament not to the backbone of the nation but to the backbone of so many individuals that so many families managed to make it through that decade and pick up life’s reins at the end of it, worse for wear, and perhaps lesser for it, but determined to get on with life. The sad thing is that these survivors had no idea that the worst war ever to plague this world was the very next thing on their schedule. I recommend this book not only for kids, but for adults too.
