Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression

The Great Depression refers to a prolonged period of economic misery that plagued millions worldwide and lasted throughout the 1930s. Studs Terkel’s interviewees refer to it as simply “The Depression" because nothing like it had ever occurred before the 1930s, and nothing of its kind has happened since.

Economic historians use many indices to help quantify the suffering. The most revealing statistics involve joblessness. At its peak in 1933, the US nationwide unemployment rate hit 25%. Small, steady declines in joblessness ensued for the next five years before the unemployment rate spiked again in 1938, reaching nearly 20%. Not until World War II did the US return to full employment. Other disasters coincided with, or in some cases triggered, mass unemployment. In the early 1930s, thousands of banks failed, costing many Americans their life’s savings. Prices plummeted, prompting farmers to destroy crops and kill livestock in hopes of raising prices through diminished supply, even as extreme poverty and hunger spread.

The question of what caused the Depression remains a matter of debate. The US stock-market crash of October 1929, what Terkel’s interviewees remember as simply “The Crash,” lingered in popular memory for many decades thereafter as the one dramatic event associated with the Depression’s onset.