One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickok Reports on the Great Depression

by Lorena A. Hickok, Richard Lowitt, Maurine H. Beasley

Between 1933 and 1935, Lorena Hickok traveled across thirty-two states as a "confidential investigator" for Harry Hopkins, head of FDR's Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Her assignment was to gather information about the day-to-day toll the Depression was exacting on individual citizens. One Third of a Nation is her record, underscored by the eloquent photographs of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and others, of the shocking plight of millions of unemployed and dispossessed Americans.
 

Genres: History, Nonfiction

440 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1981

About the author

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_...

Reviews

[Susan Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this to get a sense of Lorena Hickok as an observer, a writer, a social commentator--and came away with a clearer understanding of her as a person. A lively, conversational, often passionate review of the New Deal as it played out in communities across the country, enhanced with an excellent introduction and notes. If you want to know what the Depression was really like, read this. It's too bad that Hickok was discouraged from publishing this material during her lifetime.

[Gilda Felt · Rating 4 out of 5]

While there's quite a bit of repetition, natural since so many people were in the same situation, the information collected by Hickok gives a thorough, and devastating view of the Great Depression's effect on the citizens of the United States. It left me wondering how many more would have died if it weren't for the government's sometimes flawed role in aiding its people, and what it says about so many now who reject that role.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting! Her racial views are a bit...1930s, but it's amazing how we're still having the same arguments and facing some of the same problems today.

[Misty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Candid and raw view of the depression.

[Tommie Nicholas]

Finally finished it. This is a great book on the Great Depression. It is told in letters that Lorena Hickok sent to Harry L. Hopkins on the results of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, FERA funds were sent to states and counties all over the US and Ms. Hickok visited many towns, counties and states to see how the money was being spent. The book is a diary of her visits. I started reading it almost a year ago. I was lucky to find a copy at one of my favorite thrift store, because it is very expensive and hard to find.