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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 3, 2021
I feel obligated to write a review of this because apparently it's very little read (there's not even a cover picture on here which is s bummer cause the cover is great!) and that's a shame. Armstrong was the administrator for emergency relief in Manistee County Michigan (this is my home county, and I may be biased because I find the local history so fascinating) during the great depression, and this is her account of that time.
The thing about this book is it's sort of a two-in-one. First and foremost, it's a straightforward history of how emergency relief was administered under the Roosevelt administration in a rural county. Her descriptions of the rise of Roosevelt are telling (all the rich people hated him but everyone else loved him), and the fits and starts of getting these massive programs off the ground are interesting. Mostly it was incredible to think about just what our government used to be capable of, reading in 2021 when it seems they can't do anything. The massive, measurable, material difference made in millions of people lives, by government programs that were established and started running incredibly quickly, given the obstacles, is inspiring to think about. It's important to look back at this period, IMO, as a reminder of what our country is actually capable of doing for us.
Second, the book functions as a sort of ethnography or history of a specific time and place and a specific population. I found this aspect even more interesting, partly because I know the area she is writing about so well, but also because I find this period of history really interesting. And many of her descriptions of Manistee county could probably also be applied to similar areas across the country (the rich people live on top of the hill, while the working class lives below and across the river, and the truly poor live in the surrounding rural areas, for example. The more things change, the more they stay the same.)
As far as the writing, Faulkner she ain't, but what it lacks in beauty it makes up for in accessibility and punchiness. I found it hard to put down. It was published in 1939, so you have to be willing to deal with some pretty offensive terminology (Native Americans are "redskins" and "savages", a black woman is a "pickaninny" etc.). I struggled to decide whether I found the author likable or not. She spends a good chunk of time distinguishing between "high grade and low grade" types of people, based not on race or class but more so on behavior, which I found off-putting. But she also exhibits very deep empathy for the suffering people of all backgrounds she comes in contact with, and a real fury that our country could allow this suffering to happen, coupled with a deep commitment to do something about it, which I found admirable. I suppose, like all of us, she is just a complicated person who is deeply moral in some ways and deeply flawed in others.
Some people in my home county still remember the people discussed here, and some still hold a grudge against the author for depicting us as "backward". I see where they are coming from, but I think the portrait painted is more complicated than that. While she does whine a lot about our "primitive way of life" which makes my blood boil, she spends equal time praising the human spirit she finds every day in our community.
Overall, if you are interested in rural America and/or the Great Depression/New Deal I'd say this is a must read. I think it's hard to come by but I ordered a copy from Schuler's in Grand Rapids.
(P.S. I'd love to upload a picture of the cover if anyone knows how).
The thing about this book is it's sort of a two-in-one. First and foremost, it's a straightforward history of how emergency relief was administered under the Roosevelt administration in a rural county. Her descriptions of the rise of Roosevelt are telling (all the rich people hated him but everyone else loved him), and the fits and starts of getting these massive programs off the ground are interesting. Mostly it was incredible to think about just what our government used to be capable of, reading in 2021 when it seems they can't do anything. The massive, measurable, material difference made in millions of people lives, by government programs that were established and started running incredibly quickly, given the obstacles, is inspiring to think about. It's important to look back at this period, IMO, as a reminder of what our country is actually capable of doing for us.
Second, the book functions as a sort of ethnography or history of a specific time and place and a specific population. I found this aspect even more interesting, partly because I know the area she is writing about so well, but also because I find this period of history really interesting. And many of her descriptions of Manistee county could probably also be applied to similar areas across the country (the rich people live on top of the hill, while the working class lives below and across the river, and the truly poor live in the surrounding rural areas, for example. The more things change, the more they stay the same.)
As far as the writing, Faulkner she ain't, but what it lacks in beauty it makes up for in accessibility and punchiness. I found it hard to put down. It was published in 1939, so you have to be willing to deal with some pretty offensive terminology (Native Americans are "redskins" and "savages", a black woman is a "pickaninny" etc.). I struggled to decide whether I found the author likable or not. She spends a good chunk of time distinguishing between "high grade and low grade" types of people, based not on race or class but more so on behavior, which I found off-putting. But she also exhibits very deep empathy for the suffering people of all backgrounds she comes in contact with, and a real fury that our country could allow this suffering to happen, coupled with a deep commitment to do something about it, which I found admirable. I suppose, like all of us, she is just a complicated person who is deeply moral in some ways and deeply flawed in others.
Some people in my home county still remember the people discussed here, and some still hold a grudge against the author for depicting us as "backward". I see where they are coming from, but I think the portrait painted is more complicated than that. While she does whine a lot about our "primitive way of life" which makes my blood boil, she spends equal time praising the human spirit she finds every day in our community.
Overall, if you are interested in rural America and/or the Great Depression/New Deal I'd say this is a must read. I think it's hard to come by but I ordered a copy from Schuler's in Grand Rapids.
(P.S. I'd love to upload a picture of the cover if anyone knows how).
December 6, 2024
What a delightful book! A social worker (with 2 degrees!) from Chicago (who lived/worked in settlement houses!) moves to Manistee to save money during the depression. She becomes the Relief Administrator when FDR becomes president. Despite her categorizing people into "high" and "low" categories, she relates interesting anecdotes about the community she serves and how the relief office worked. It's an up-close look at people of this time in small-town Michigan. It seems like not much has changed in many cases.
p44 "In the preceding years, so many people 'didn't read the signs'."
The same questions about people on welfare by genuinely ignorant people. "They were usually followed by the rubber-stamp statement: 'Anybody who really wants a job can get one'."
p137 "In all frankness--the citizens of this county were in general a mediocre to low-grade, unprogressive and relatively unintelligent community, but as I think of those lines of stalwart men in boots, I know that there were many of them who could have been of a much higher grade than they were, if only they had had the chance."
p142 The local politicians wanted control of the government money so they could spend it how they saw fit, but "No thought of politics ever entered the picture in our office."
p194 "As we studied this small model, it seemed to me that we were learning to understand better the great world outside...This little concrete world before us made us think more intelligently about the whole country. Sometimes we wondered if it really the land of the free; but as we came to konw our cases, we grew very sure that it was the home of the brave."
Regarding Native Americans p205 "This had been a great race of mankind, and some of that dignity and serenity of personality had survived, even after 300 years of oppression. We felt that this could have been an even great race than it once had been, if the white man had been more foreseeing and less greedy."
p298 The well-to-do wail about "the sinful misuse of taxpayer money" on those who need help without knowing the "facts of the situation". Sounds familiar.
p469 "Unless the people themselves- not just the rich, not just the poor, but all the people - rise about the selfishness, the pettiness of mind and the indifference to human injustice which have grown out of the greed of many past decades of so-called progress, it seems to me that it makes little difference which or what political party is in power."
p471 "I cannot believe that the average reasonable prosperous, and therefore privileged, American citizen is fundamentally cruel and heartless and lacking in a sense of decency."
p473 "Why can we not foster the priceless human qualities of our people, instead of forever crushing them underfoot in the stampede for money and power?... More will share [these thoughts] as we progress out of an era of self-seeking, towards a saner viewpoint, a wiser estimate of value -as we must progress, if we are to survive. In the past few years, we have seen a nation waking and groping towards a better understanding of human problems, but nothing worth while is gained without effort. The battle is still raging. We cannot leave the front-line trenches yet."
I really like this book for two reason: her writing sounds as if she is writing a friend a letter and her writing is still so relevant. Which is so very sad.
p44 "In the preceding years, so many people 'didn't read the signs'."
The same questions about people on welfare by genuinely ignorant people. "They were usually followed by the rubber-stamp statement: 'Anybody who really wants a job can get one'."
p137 "In all frankness--the citizens of this county were in general a mediocre to low-grade, unprogressive and relatively unintelligent community, but as I think of those lines of stalwart men in boots, I know that there were many of them who could have been of a much higher grade than they were, if only they had had the chance."
p142 The local politicians wanted control of the government money so they could spend it how they saw fit, but "No thought of politics ever entered the picture in our office."
p194 "As we studied this small model, it seemed to me that we were learning to understand better the great world outside...This little concrete world before us made us think more intelligently about the whole country. Sometimes we wondered if it really the land of the free; but as we came to konw our cases, we grew very sure that it was the home of the brave."
Regarding Native Americans p205 "This had been a great race of mankind, and some of that dignity and serenity of personality had survived, even after 300 years of oppression. We felt that this could have been an even great race than it once had been, if the white man had been more foreseeing and less greedy."
p298 The well-to-do wail about "the sinful misuse of taxpayer money" on those who need help without knowing the "facts of the situation". Sounds familiar.
p469 "Unless the people themselves- not just the rich, not just the poor, but all the people - rise about the selfishness, the pettiness of mind and the indifference to human injustice which have grown out of the greed of many past decades of so-called progress, it seems to me that it makes little difference which or what political party is in power."
p471 "I cannot believe that the average reasonable prosperous, and therefore privileged, American citizen is fundamentally cruel and heartless and lacking in a sense of decency."
p473 "Why can we not foster the priceless human qualities of our people, instead of forever crushing them underfoot in the stampede for money and power?... More will share [these thoughts] as we progress out of an era of self-seeking, towards a saner viewpoint, a wiser estimate of value -as we must progress, if we are to survive. In the past few years, we have seen a nation waking and groping towards a better understanding of human problems, but nothing worth while is gained without effort. The battle is still raging. We cannot leave the front-line trenches yet."
I really like this book for two reason: her writing sounds as if she is writing a friend a letter and her writing is still so relevant. Which is so very sad.
Want to Read
August 2, 2019Referenced in A Square Meal as "Part character study, part sociological report, and part administrative history, We Too Are the People illuminated the unique subculture that grew up around the relief office."
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews