A woman, her face deeply lined with worry and fear, sits on a city stoop, her children

pressed around her for comfort and warmth. Men, once proud of steady work, shuffle along in

slow-moving lines, waiting for a bowl of soup, an apple,

a piece of bread. More and more of them sleep in makeshift shantytowns, built of scrapwood,

cardboard, and tin. In rural areas, farmers drive for-sale signs into ground that can no longer

sustain a living.

Out on the Great Plains of the Midwest, the land itself rebels,

as soil becomes dry clouds of red blinding dust.

This is the story of America in the early 1930s.

From Wall Street to Main Street, from farm fields to factories,

Americans are worn thin, without jobs or savings or the means to build their futures.

This is the Great Depression.

Music Hey, everybody, nice to be with you. I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hit.

Hard to believe we've made it to the fourth year of this podcast series without exploring our subject today in real detail.

The Great Depression of the 1930s was the backdrop, if not motivating cause of so much of what happened in the 20th century. It was an economic catastrophe that triggered political,

military, and cultural shifts in America and around the world. When exploring America's

darkest hours, as we're doing this month, the Great Depression is the stroke of midnight.

To help us understand how and why it all happened, we're joined by historian and professor

John E. Moser, a specialist in American and global history, whose work focuses on how economic crisis

reshapes politics, power, and international relations. He is the chair of the Department

of History and Political Science at Ashland University in Ohio, Fly, Tuffy, Fly, and is the author

of a list of books, including, usefully for Today, The Global Great Depression and the

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