Despite real hardship resulting from massive unemployment, wellbeing indicators suggest that the human cost of the Great Depression of the 1930s did not match that of the “First Great Depression” of the 1890s (see also Grant 1983: 3-11 for a general discussion of the severity of the 1890s Depression). Furthermore, while the 1930s are remembered as a period of violent labor unrest, the intensity of class struggle was actually lower than during the 1890s Depression.
