This is America in Pursuit, a limited run series from ThruLine and NPR.

I'm Randadavid Fetach.

Each week, we bring you stories about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the United States that began 250 years ago.

There are no jobs.

Most of us have had no breakfast.

Some have had scant rations for over a year.

Hunger makes a human being lapse into a state of lethargy,

especially city hunger.

The Great Depression was one of the worst economic disasters in modern history.

It started in 1929 and lasted through the next decade.

Is there any place else in the world where a human being is supposed to go hungry, amidst plenty, without an outcry, without protest?

We're only the boldest steal or kill for bread,

and the timid crawl the streets.

It was marked by massive unemployment, hunger, homelessness,

and a general sense that the country's future was in peril.

It's too terrible to see this animal terror in each other's eyes.

The Great Depression left a lasting imprint on the people who lived it.

So today on the show, we want to immerse you in the era

and let the people who lived through it tell their own stories.

Stories captured in oral histories, diaries, and essays brought to life through reenactment.

Four people, four vastly different experiences from different ethnic and racial backgrounds

from all over the United States.

...