Hard Times

"The Studs Terkel book, Hard Times , is an oral history of the Great Depression, including people from all walks of life describing what they did, from the demonstrations and riots of the out-of-work to Goldman Sachs executives talking about what’s going on. Studs Terkel was a Chicago radio host and he recorded all these interviews long after the Depression and played them on the radio in the 1970s. There are interviews with people who spent the time as hobos, people from the Works Progress Administration. There was 25 per cent unemployment in the Great Depression, whereas now it’s ten per cent. So, there is a group of people, like you and me, who are doing fine and then a large group of invisible people who aren’t doing fine."