Studs Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression.

New York: Pantheon Books,

1970. Pp. xvii, 481.

A Critical Review of Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression By Studs Terkel

A young man in the 1930s by the name of Ed Paulsen jumps aboard the refrigerator car

of the train, taking him to an unknown destination. Every day is the same, waking up at 5 am to

find work, and when he undoubtedly fails to do so, he joins in the protests in front of city hall,

demanding a source of money, a small sense of security (Terkel 29). This is the unfortunate

reality of thousands of people described in Studs Terkel’s book Hard Times: An Oral History of

the Great Depression, including Terkel himself. Even as Terkel rose to become a popular radio

host in Chicago and a Pulitzer prize winning writer, he never forgot about the ‘dirty thirties’.

Undeniably the most negative economic event in American history, the Great Depression

represents a time of hopelessness and hardship, and Terkel wanted to record these dominating

themes of the time period. By conducting hundreds of interviews, and compiling them into a

book, he created a window that opens into the fear and insecurity of the time. In his book Hard

Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, Studs Terkel effectively highlights the

multitude of negative impacts of the great depression through his use of an interview format, the

variety in social status of the interviewees, and the emphasis on political and economic themes.

Firstly, Terkel’s interview format allows for a deeper understanding of the events that

made up the great depression. Because interviews are primary sources, they convey a stronger

sense of emotion, and help create a more defined image of what the great depression looked like.

The style of writing and general tone provided by the book emphasize some of the major events
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that made up the 30’s, such as the stock market crash, which initiated the great depression. As

Europe recovered from the war, American businesses were forced to cut production rates and lay

off workers, who rushed to the bank for their paychecks. However, banks had invested all of

their customers’ money in the stock market, and as stocks went down, they lost wealth. As

everyone sells their stock as quickly as possible, the market crashes. As interviewee Raymond

Moley puts it, “If my money’s here, I don’t want it. If it's not here, I want it” (Terkel 251). An

example of individual people’s experiences with the stock market. Another event that is heavily

discussed by Terkel’s interviewees is the emergence of the new deal, the government’s response

to the great depression. While President Hoover’s initial philosophy was to allow the system to

recover on its own, Franklin Roosevelt had ideas for government intervention in the economy, to

provide citizens with sources of income. One of the most prominent ideas he had was the

National Recovery Administration, or the NRA, which created paid jobs for citizens. “The NRA

was one of the most successful things the New Deal did,” said interviewee Gardiner Means.

“The NRA changed the attitudes of businesses and the public. It revived belief that something

could be done” (Terkel 249). By using interviews to describe events such as these, Terkel

personalized the great depression, allowing emotions to describe the events in a way that

standard textbook history cannot.

Another way Terkel describes how poor life was during the 30s is by using interviewees

with a wide range of socioeconomic status, to show some of the similarities and differences in

the experiences of Americans. While some people barely scraped through the depression, others

were more focused on the idea of a completely new economic system, and this major difference

made it very easy to determine that wealth, even the smallest amount, allowed for a sense of

security. For example, Edward Ryerson, a director for a steel company, said, “We did more for
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ourselves. I did away with my chauffeur and so forth. We had to cut ourselves down so that it

would not look too far out of line” (Terkel 151). The idea that wealthy people had to make

themselves seem poorer to fit with the general public shows how low the standard of living was

for most people. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Buddy Blankenship, a miner, said, “I’ve

been in a depression ever since I've been in the world” (Terkel 198). Blankenship remembers

working 16 hours a day with his dad in extreme conditions, for a measly $1.75. Because there is

such a prominent difference in these two individual’s lifestyles, the consequences of the great

depression are extremely obvious. In addition, allowing people to recount the experience for

themselves adds a further layer of sadness to the book, causing readers to truly understand how it

felt to be so poor. Another example of the way Terkel uses his interviewees to explore the effects

of the great depression is seen through the comparison of a farmer and a government official.

Oscar Heline, a farmer all of his life, claimed that farmers were being robbed by the government.

They took everything off the farm, including household goods, making it impossible to escape

debt. “In South Dakota, the county elevator listed corn as minus three cents. If you wanted to sell

‘em a bushel of corn, you had to bring in three cents” (Terkel 218). This meant that running a

farm during the great depression yielded a negative revenue, no matter how goods were sold. Alf

Landon, on the other hand, the governor of Kansas in 1932, remembered how full his reception

room was during the great depression, as men with tears in their eyes, such as Heline, begged for

some compensation. These connections that Terkel forges between his interviewees are what

make this book such a complete history of the great depression. The lack of money everywhere

is something almost every single interviewee mentions at some point, and the different

perspectives from varying social classes show that the effects of the depression impacted

everyone.
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Terkel’s organization of the interviews into 5 ‘books’ and subsequent chapters also offers

views of several aspects of the great depression. Each book contains a central theme, and each

chapter groups together similar interviews. Book 3, for example, has chapters entitled

“Concerning the New Deal” and ‘An Unreconstructed Populist”, to delve into the political side

of the great depression. An interview with a Texan congressman named C. Patman reveals how

the government was really controlled by those who had the money, and how he had to fight to

protect Texans from the opposition party, who were against providing federal relief. The political

scene during the thirties was all about how much the government should be doing to help its

citizens. Economically, Book 2 discusses the different ways in which people chose to handle

their financial issues. Harry Terrell, who came from a long line of farmers, remembers how the

economy was so deflated, that money meant so little in terms of purchasing power, and yet

nobody could get a single dime regardless. “Much as I hate to say it, the Second World War did

end the great depression” (Terkel 216). Book one covers social consequences of the great

depression, specifically the use of strikes. Bob Stinton, a worker at General Motors, described a

sit-in strike that happened for 44 days, organized by the United Automobile Workers Union.

Additionally, he talked about the Black Legion, a union of black workers who were frequently

targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. By organizing interviews into political, economic, and social

themes, Terkel provides a well-rounded history of all of the consequences of the great

depression.

Of course, no history of the great depression would be complete without thorough

discussion of the psychological aspect, and an entire section of Terkel’s book is dedicated to it.

Many of the people Terkel interviewees were fathers during the 30’s, and this was no exception

for Ben Isaacs, father to 3 kids. His interview is a sorrowful story about how he struggled to
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provide for his family, and the shame associated with going on a relief fund. He said, “Every

door was closed on me, every avenue. Even when I was putting my hand on gold, it would turn

into dust. Whatever I tried, I would fail” (Terkel 424). The misery of some of these people is so

evident in their interviews, that Terkel went back after writing the book to name those who had

committed suicide, as there were so many.

Overall, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression is one of the best

recollections of the 1930’s and the great depression. Terkel expertly describes its many

consequences through his use of hundreds of interviews, their varying social status, and the

organization of interviews into economic, political, and social themes. Written by an experienced

interviewer and writer, the book is highly successful at retaining emotions and ideas and using

them to tell a story of one of the worst time periods of American history. Terkel conducted

interviews with 160 people to create this book, and every single one of them is a unique memory,

a different perspective to the challenges people faced during that time. It would be difficult to

find such an interesting, advanced, complete history of the great depression anywhere else.

Sanmay Mangal

HIST 1302: US History

Summer 2023