Reader T.H. McGraw, 70, is also a writer, and old enough to remember some pithy anecdotes about the Great Depression.  In an article he wrote for the History News Network of George Mason University, he recalls an America that had the fortitude to weather hard times with a sanguine spirit.  Read Remembering Past Hard Times, an excerpt from which is appended below, by clicking here.

“Someone from ‘the thirties’ seeing today’s consumerism might initially express surprise, maybe admiration. After seeing its magnitude they might tactfully inquire as to the means for all the affluence. Few of them would easily be aware of the associated dissipation of personal savings, reckless destruction of resources and environmental ravages. That seems to evade even modern comprehension as consumerism is suggested by most as the proper nostrum for current economic problems – using credit if need be. Not that people of the Depression years were unfamiliar with credit buying. We can find Woody Guthrie’s ‘Dollar Down and a Dollar a Week’ in the pop-song offerings today. Generalizing from our readings, those in the ‘hard years’ seemed a good deal more circumspect, less entitled, and indeed adept at material self-denial.”