I'm going to tell you a story about an unlikely Christmas tree.

I first heard the story from an art historian named Christine Roussel.

I'm Christine Roussel. I'm basically an art historian.

So we're going to tell you the story together.

The story takes place in 1931.

You have to realize that that year, 1931, we have the Great Depression.

Christmas, of course, was a very different thing during the Depression.

And the way that relates to our story is the fact that our story involves a group of demolition

workers at a major construction site.

Workers who were lucky to have any kind of job at all at that time, and like many families, especially

families from the working class, they were struggling just to provide the basic necessities

for their families, which makes it all the more significant that these workers did what they

did, because they...

I'd gone out and bought a 20-foot-high fur, and they erected it and then decorated it with garlands handmade by the

men's family from tinfoil ends of blasting caps and all sorts of odd stuff.

We know that all of this happened because there's a photograph of it.

And looking at the photo, there's something that says that this is the kind of Christmas tree

and the kind of image that only the Great Depression could have produced. The tree standing amidst the rubble

of an enormous construction site, clumsily strewn with some kind of homemade garland. You might

think that the photo strikes a gloomy tone, but no, it's just the opposite, because...

It shows this ragged group of men about to receive their wages from the paymaster,

and behind them stands the tree that they had purchased and erected,

...