[Ailist] From a Jonah Lehrer post: Great Depression stories

[Stephanie West Allen]

Excerpt:

This American Life recently featured an astonishing series of  
recordings from Hard Times, the radio series created by Studs Terkel.  
It featured a variety of American voices, from the short order cook  
in Arkansas to the migrant worker in Texas to the wealthy elite of  
Manhattan, talking about what it was like to live through the Great  
Depression. The sheer suffering was astonishing. People talked about  
hunger and living off oily brown water and stale bread. They  
described what it was like to have no heat in winter and spend years  
in the unemployment line. The rich guy was hilariously greedy.

But the most remarkable thing about the oral histories is that,  
despite the suffering and material deprivation, people didn't  
describe the Great depression in depressed terms. In fact, nearly  
every person described the experience as partly positive, a tough  
time that the entire country was forced to suffer through together.  
Their memories seem irrevocably tinged by that sense of community.


Rest here:

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/11/studs_terkel.php

Stephanie