The Great Depression

Find archive articles on the Great Depression from the 1930’s. Our site has great information from old magazine and newspaper articles on the Great Depression.

The Degraded Lives of American Reds
(Script Magazine, 1935)

This article was written by an anonymous soul who wanted the Script readers to understand that the life of an American Communist during the Great Depression was not a good one. Their lives often involved constant police surveillance and harassment to say nothing of blacklisting.

What boon can membership in the Communist Party confer upon them in exchange for the martyrdom they almost inevitably suffer? But is any membership card ever printed worth having one’s skull fractured for?


More about American Communists during the Great depression can be read here

Reds Among Us
(Scribner’s Magazine, 1930)

When the market crashed in the Fall of 1929, the Communist Party of America really thought their hour had arrived. They took to the streets with their red banners and set to work fomenting unrest in whatever factories were still afloat. Most Americans recognized their blarney as mere pie in the sky and would have none of it; still their membership lists were growing and many Americans were wondering how they should be dealt with. This article examined how the communists were organized, what they were up to and recommended that Americans should keep in mind that the Reds will go when prosperity returns – and not before.


We also have an article on The Daily Worker.

The Economic Collapse of the World
(Literary Digest, 1933)

Published in May of 1933, the attached article concerned the much anticipated London Economic Conference which was scheduled to convene the following month in London. The world leaders who agreed to assemble were all of one mind in so much as their shared belief that collectively they would stand a better chance in defeating the economic depression that was bedeviling all their respective countries. It was their intention to meet and review all existing international trade and tariff agreements and to make an effort at stabilizing the currency exchange rates.

The Wages and Hours Bill
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1937, 1938)

This article recorded portions of the battle on Capitol Hill that were waged between the Spring and Winter of 1937 when Congress was crafting legislation that would establish a minimum wage law for the nation’s employees as well as a maximum amount of working hours they would be expected to toil before additional payments would be required. This legislation would also see to it that children were removed from the American labor force. The subject at hand is the Black-Connery Bill and it passed into law as the Fair Labor Standards Act.

African-Americans During the Great Depression
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1939)

Written during the later years of the Great Depression, these columns summarize the sad lot of America’s Black population – their hardships, ambitions, leadership, and where they tended to live.

When the Depression struck, Negroes were the first to lose their jobs. Today, 1,500,000 colored adults are unemployed.


A 1938 article about the hardships of the Southern States during the Great Depression can be read here…


Click here to learn about the origins of the term Jim Crow.

Starvation in the San Joaquin Valley
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

Renowned as an earthly paradise from whose rich soil the brilliant sun draws abundant crops of semi-tropical fruits, the Great Valley is today the state’s principal source of wealth. Last week, Californians were acutely conscious that the valley could also produce squalor, misery, disease and death…[The San Joaquin Valley] is host to 70,000 jobless, homeless families living in frightful squalor and privation….hopeless men and women sprawled in the sun as their ill-clad children played in the dirt.


Read about the the mood of the Great Depression and how it was reflected in the election of 1932 – click here…

Hugh S. Johnson of the NRA
(Literary Digest, 1937)

Published some time after the demise of the NRA, this article presents a thumbnail profile of Hugh S. Johnson (1882 – 1942), FDR’s fair-haired boy who ran that shop from start to finish. He was once again in the news after having compared the New Deal to a fascist dictatorship during the Fall of 1937.

The Flaws of the NRA
(Collier’s Magazine, 1933)

An excerpt from a longer article by Winston Churchill in which he praised the virtues of the Anglo-American alliance and the economic leadership forged by the two nations during the Depression. Four paragraphs are devoted to the confusion he experienced when stopping to consider some of President Roosevelt’s economic decisions and the roll played by his National Recovery Administration (NRA).


Like many presidents before and after him, FDR purchased many of his clothes from Brooks Brothers;
click here to read about the history of the store.

The Forgotten Men and the NRA
(Literary Digest, 1935)

A long program of suggested remedial legislation lies ahead of the 7,500 representatives of the people who gather this year in the halls of Congress and of all but four State Legislatures. The NRA (National Recovery Administration) will come under the closest scrutiny. As the old year waned, the NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act)was being attacked and defended.

Click here to see a chart concerning the U.S. urban murder rate between the years 1926 – 1936.


In 1934, the NRA went to Hollywood and performed a task it was not legally obligated to do; click here to read about it…

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