80 years ago today the Stock Market crashed on what came to be known as Black Tuesday, the start of the Great Depression. As we struggle to find our footing in what is now considered the Great Recession, take a moment to look back and listen to people on the front line:
* PBS just ran an excellent biography on Herbert Hoover. I never knew historians still widely consider him one of the most — perhaps THE most — competent man ever elected President of the United States. In fact, his career was one of unbridled success and acclaim, until that fateful Tuesday.
* The Roosevelt Institute's New Deal 2.0 is running an insightful series asking thinkers of today what lessons we should have learned from the Great Depression and where we are headed.
* Errol Morris recently completed a fascinating seven-part series on the authenticity Farm Security Administration photographs. Highly recommend.
*Here is a bleak assessment of dogs in the Great Depression based on two characters in Of Mice and Men euthanizing their pets — considered the most human thing to do.
Needless to say, photos of dogs in the Great Depression are not exactly plentiful.
Herbert Hoover's dogs, King Tut, Whoopie & Englehurst Gillette . March 28, 1929. Via VerySerious.org
Children playing near dead dog, South Side of Chicago by Russell Lee, 1941. Via the Library of Congress.
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