In Their Time

[FOUR]

1930–1939

Survival Through Adaptation and Renewal

What the country needs is a good big laugh. There seems to be a condition of hysteria. If someone could get off a good joke every

ten days I think our troubles would be over.

—Herbert Hoover, 1931

The country needs bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly

and try another. But above all, try something.

—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1932

THE STOCK MARKET CRASH of October 1929 ushered in a decade of despair, despondency, and desolation as America’s deepest and darkest period of economic instability and poverty unfolded—the Great Depression. While the majority of Americans did not have money invested in the stock market, the ...