Description

Writers writing about the Great Depression often argue that the stories and remembrances of ordinary people interweave to help us better understand the social, economic, political, and personal struggle of the 1930s in the U.S. And they remind us that these stories—vital threads in our nation’s fabric—are fraying away. Writers tackling The Great Depression mention both the forgotten and the forgetting. What happens when people and the places they inhabited are lost to passing time? What understanding—of our nation and of our own family or community—vanishes when we forget? Are our stories lost forever? Or, can the forgotten be somehow recovered, raised, recalled? And, if recovered, how do they fit into the larger context of our nation’s history? How can we make them endure?