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Letters From The Forgotten Man
The University of North Carolina Press
March 2008
On Sale: February 25, 2008
280 pages
ISBN: 0807858919
EAN: 9780807858912
Paperback
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Non-Fiction
Down and Out in the Great Depression is a moving,
revealing collection of letters by the forgotten men, women,
and children who suffered through one of the greatest
periods of hardship in American history. Sifting through
some 15,000 letters from government and private sources,
Robert McElvaine has culled nearly 200 communications that
best show the problems, thoughts, and emotions of ordinary
people during this time. Unlike views of Depression life
"from the bottom up" that rely on recollections recorded
several decades later, this book captures the daily anguish
of people during the thirties. It puts the reader in direct
contact with Depression victims, evoking a feeling of what
it was like to live through this disaster. Following
Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration, both the number of
letters received by the White House and the percentage of
them coming from the poor were unprecedented. The average
number of daily communications jumped to between 5,000 and
8,000, a trend that continued throughout the Rosevelt
administration. The White House staff for answering such
letters—most of which were directed to FDR, Eleanor
Roosevelt, or Harry Hopkins—quickly grew from one person
to fifty. Mainly because of his radio talks, many felt
they knew the president personally and could confide in him.
They viewed the Roosevelts as parent figures, offering
solace, help, and protection. Roosevelt himself valued the
letters, perceiving them as a way to gauge public sentiment.
The writers came from a number of different
groups—middle-class people, blacks, rural residents, the
elderly, and children. Their letters display emotional
reactions to the Depression—despair, cynicism, and
anger—and attitudes toward relief. In his extensive
introduction, McElvaine sets the stage for the letters,
discussing their significance and some of the themes that
emerge from them. By preserving their original spelling,
syntax, grammar, and capitalization, he conveys their full
flavor. The Depression was far more than an economic
collapse. It was the major personal event in the lives of
tens of millions of Americans. McElvaine shows that,
contrary to popular belief, many sufferers were not passive
victims of history. Rather, he says, they were "also actors
and, to an extent, playwrights, producers, and directors as
well," taking an active role in trying to deal with their
plight and solve their problems.
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