Great Depression History Memoirs

In the minds of historians and the American public alike, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of our greatest presidents, not least because he supposedly saved America from the Great Depression. But as historian Jim Powell reveals in this groundbreaking book, Roosevelt's New Deal policies actually prolonged and exacerbated the economic disaster.

In this superb audiobook, Tom Brokaw goes out into America to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation. America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values- duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself.

In the best-selling tradition of The Devil in the White City, award-winning author Brian Hicks tells the explosive story of the Morro Castle, the elegant luxury liner that burned off the coast of New Jersey on September 7, 1934. The captain died under mysterious circumstances seven hours before his ship caught fire off the New Jersey coast.

The captivating second volume of this Eleanor Roosevelt biography covers tumultuous era of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the gathering storms of World War II, the years of the Roosevelts' greatest challenges and finest achievements. In her remarkably engaging narrative, Cook gives us the complete Eleanor Roosevelt - an adventurous, romantic woman, a devoted wife and mother, and a visionary policymaker and social activist who often took unpopular stands, counter to her husband's policies, especially on issues such as racial justice and women's rights.

Like most Americans at the time, Plennie Wingo was hit hard by the effects of the Great Depression. When the bank foreclosed on his small restaurant in Abilene, he found himself suddenly penniless with nowhere left to turn. After months of struggling to feed his family on wages he earned digging ditches in the Texas sun, Plennie decided it was time to do something extraordinary - something to resurrect the spirit of adventure and optimism he felt he'd lost. He decided to walk around the world - backward.

During the harshest year of the Great Depression, Lorena Hickok, a top woman news reporter of the day and intimate friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, was hired by FDR’s right-hand man Harry Hopkins to embark upon a grueling journey to the hardest-hit areas of the country to report back on the degree of devastation. Distinguished historian Michael Golay draws on a trove of original sources - including the moving, remarkably intimate, almost daily letters between Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt - as he re-creates that extraordinary journey.

Some Americans who were born and raised during the Great Depression, have passed from this life although many still remain with us. Many famous books, movies and television shows have covered stories from that generation and many of them continue to fascinate the current generations living today. Stories of getting by in the face of adversities during The Great Depression and of the bond between family and friends are inspiring and they often demonstrate the triumph of the human spirit and the power of human love.