Three Worlds of Relief

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C bel fox studied the very distinct experiences of those three groups as they sought the help that so many people needed in the 19 twenties and thirties. These big demographi groups mostly lived in different geographies and political and labor conditions. Most new arrivals from europe landed in northeastern and midwestern industrial cities, especially before the new deal. Fox says it helped a lot to be european when seeking relief. Any kind of european, including those like poles, greeks and italians, who were not considered the right kind of white by waspy or nordick americans.

The Great Depression presented a crisis not only for the U.S. economy, but for American democracy. President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to save the nation’s system of government, and its economic system, while reforming both. What did the New Deal achieve, and not achieve?

Reported and produced by John Biewen, with series collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika. Interviews with Eric Rauchway and Cybelle Fox. The series editor is Loretta Williams.

Music by Algiers, John Erik Kaada, Eric Neveux, and Lucas Biewen. Music consulting and production help from Joe Augustine of Narrative Music.

Photo: Men fighting during a strike at the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan, 1937. Image courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

As mentioned in the episode, an article by public historian Larry DeWitt examining the widespread assertion that the exclusion of some occupations from the original Social Security old-age pension program was insisted on by southern segregationists: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html