The Great Depression (43 page)
Read The Great Depression Online
Authors: Benjamin Roth,James Ledbetter,Daniel B. Roth
EDITOR’S NOTEBenjamin Roth continued writing his diary about the national and global economies and life in Youngstown until his death in 1978 at the age of eighty-four. While World War II brought its own hardships, both Roth’s family and his law practice finally began to prosper in the 1940s. Benjamin was a very active member of the Youngstown community, heading up the local draft board, serving as president of the Bar Association, holding elective office in Youngstown, and serving on many community boards of directors, including the Youngstown School Board. The law firm that he founded continues in practice today, with Daniel B. Roth as the senior partner.
FOR FURTHER READING
There are several classic books about the stock market crash that are still very valuable resources today. There is a good reason that John Kenneth Galbraith’s
Great Crash of 1929
has never gone out of print since it was published in 1955; its wit and insight continue to enlighten new generations of readers. Robert Sobel’s
Great Bull Market: Wall Street in the 1920s
(W. W. Norton, 1968) is a concise but detailed summary of the age that came to a close. More recent crash scholarship includes
The Speculation Economy: How Finance Triumphed over Industry
(Berrett-Koehler, 2007) by Lawrence E. Mitchell, which gives a thorough overview of the evolution of the stock market in the 1920s. Other books that were helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of the financial markets of the era include
The Banking Panics of the Great Depression
by Elmus Wicker (Cambridge University Press, 2000) and
The Crash and Its Aftermath: A History of Securities Markets in the United States, 1929-1933
by Barrie A. Wigmore (Greenwood, 1985).
Great Crash of 1929
has never gone out of print since it was published in 1955; its wit and insight continue to enlighten new generations of readers. Robert Sobel’s
Great Bull Market: Wall Street in the 1920s
(W. W. Norton, 1968) is a concise but detailed summary of the age that came to a close. More recent crash scholarship includes
The Speculation Economy: How Finance Triumphed over Industry
(Berrett-Koehler, 2007) by Lawrence E. Mitchell, which gives a thorough overview of the evolution of the stock market in the 1920s. Other books that were helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of the financial markets of the era include
The Banking Panics of the Great Depression
by Elmus Wicker (Cambridge University Press, 2000) and
The Crash and Its Aftermath: A History of Securities Markets in the United States, 1929-1933
by Barrie A. Wigmore (Greenwood, 1985).
No analysis of the Great Depression or the New Deal is complete without a reading of the three-volume set
The Age of Roosevelt
(Houghton Mifflin, 1957) by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. The first two volumes,
The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933
and
The Coming of the New Deal, 1933-1935
were particularly relevant to this book. Another fine explanation for the causes of the Great Depression and a detailed overview of the FDR years is
The New Deal: The Depression Years, 1933-1940
by Anthony J. Badger (Ivan R. Dee, 1989). Two indispensable books (complete with photos) on the devastating impact of the Great Depression on the everyday life of Americans are
The Great Depression: America in the 1930s
(Little, Brown, 1993) and
Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940
(Ivan R. Dee, 2002) by David E. Kyvig. John A. Garraty’s
Great Depression: A Classic Study of the Worldwide Depression of the 1930s
(Anchor Books, 1987) provides a thorough background on the effects of the economic downturn around the world.
Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years
(University of Illinois Press, 1998) by Richard H. Pells offers a valuable cultural history of the era from a leftist perspective.
The Age of Roosevelt
(Houghton Mifflin, 1957) by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. The first two volumes,
The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933
and
The Coming of the New Deal, 1933-1935
were particularly relevant to this book. Another fine explanation for the causes of the Great Depression and a detailed overview of the FDR years is
The New Deal: The Depression Years, 1933-1940
by Anthony J. Badger (Ivan R. Dee, 1989). Two indispensable books (complete with photos) on the devastating impact of the Great Depression on the everyday life of Americans are
The Great Depression: America in the 1930s
(Little, Brown, 1993) and
Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940
(Ivan R. Dee, 2002) by David E. Kyvig. John A. Garraty’s
Great Depression: A Classic Study of the Worldwide Depression of the 1930s
(Anchor Books, 1987) provides a thorough background on the effects of the economic downturn around the world.
Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years
(University of Illinois Press, 1998) by Richard H. Pells offers a valuable cultural history of the era from a leftist perspective.
From the Crash to the Blitz, 1929-1939
by Cabell B. H. Phillips and Herbert Mitgang (Fordham University Press, 2000) and sections of
The FDR Years: On Roosevelt and His Legacy
by William Edward Leuchtenburg (Columbia University Press, 1997) also provided background for this book. For a sympathetic review of the Hoover years, nothing compares to the recollections of the president himself in
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover
(Macmillan, 1952). In addition, two general reference books were also helpful resources:
Encyclopedia of the Great Depression
by Robert S. McElvaine (Macmillan Reference, 2004) and
Encyclopedia of the Great Depression and the New Deal
(Sharp Reference, 2000), edited by James Liment.
by Cabell B. H. Phillips and Herbert Mitgang (Fordham University Press, 2000) and sections of
The FDR Years: On Roosevelt and His Legacy
by William Edward Leuchtenburg (Columbia University Press, 1997) also provided background for this book. For a sympathetic review of the Hoover years, nothing compares to the recollections of the president himself in
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover
(Macmillan, 1952). In addition, two general reference books were also helpful resources:
Encyclopedia of the Great Depression
by Robert S. McElvaine (Macmillan Reference, 2004) and
Encyclopedia of the Great Depression and the New Deal
(Sharp Reference, 2000), edited by James Liment.
There are also many useful and provocative works published more recently. Liaquat Ahamed’s
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
(Penguin Press, 2009) is a gripping, well-informed account of how financial authorities in the world’s large economies bungled through the crisis of the late 1920s. For a quick single-volume read, Eric Rauchway’s
Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction
(Oxford University Press, 2008) is hard to beat; it is a model blend of scholarship and readability. Alan Brinkley’s
End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War
(Random House, 1996) provides an exceptional level of detail into the politics and schisms inside the Roosevelt administration. Jonathan Alter sheds important new light on FDR’s actions in
The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
(Simon and Schuster, 2006). And Amity Shlaes makes a case for the anti-New Deal opposition in
The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
(HarperCollins, 2007).
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
(Penguin Press, 2009) is a gripping, well-informed account of how financial authorities in the world’s large economies bungled through the crisis of the late 1920s. For a quick single-volume read, Eric Rauchway’s
Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction
(Oxford University Press, 2008) is hard to beat; it is a model blend of scholarship and readability. Alan Brinkley’s
End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War
(Random House, 1996) provides an exceptional level of detail into the politics and schisms inside the Roosevelt administration. Jonathan Alter sheds important new light on FDR’s actions in
The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
(Simon and Schuster, 2006). And Amity Shlaes makes a case for the anti-New Deal opposition in
The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
(HarperCollins, 2007).
For details about the history of Youngstown and its steel industry, there can be no match for
Steeltown U.S.A.: Work and Memory in Youngstown
(University Press of Kansas, 2002) by Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo, a passionate and thorough examination of how the boom and bust of the steel mills affected the city of Youngstown and its surrounding area.
Steeltown U.S.A.: Work and Memory in Youngstown
(University Press of Kansas, 2002) by Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo, a passionate and thorough examination of how the boom and bust of the steel mills affected the city of Youngstown and its surrounding area.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In August 2008, my son, Bill, phoned me from his Wall Street office and said that if I was ever going to publish the portion of my father’s diary dealing with the Great Depression, now was the time to do so. I realized that he was right but told him I had no idea how to proceed. Bill spoke with friends in New York who led me to Jim Ledbetter, editor of “The Big Money,” a Web magazine that is owned by the
Washington Post
. Jim became fascinated by the diary and began publishing entries on the Internet. As a result, I was contacted by a New York publishing firm that expressed an interest in a book deal. I decided at this point that I had better get a literary agent, and so once again I turned to Bill, who ultimately brought me together with Chris Calhoun of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. With Chris as my agent and Jim Ledbetter at my side, we ended up with an outstanding publisher, PublicAffairs, working with Clive Priddle and Niki Papadopoulos and their very professional team.
Washington Post
. Jim became fascinated by the diary and began publishing entries on the Internet. As a result, I was contacted by a New York publishing firm that expressed an interest in a book deal. I decided at this point that I had better get a literary agent, and so once again I turned to Bill, who ultimately brought me together with Chris Calhoun of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. With Chris as my agent and Jim Ledbetter at my side, we ended up with an outstanding publisher, PublicAffairs, working with Clive Priddle and Niki Papadopoulos and their very professional team.
As a naïve newcomer to the publishing world, I know that I could never have fulfilled my promise to my dad without people like Jim, Chris, Clive, Niki, and their professional coworkers. Likewise, I must express my deepest gratitude to my son, Bill, who not only helped put the team together but also worked closely with me throughout the entire process. Bill, your grandfather would have appreciated all your efforts—as do I. Likewise, I owe a debt of gratitude to my nieces, Jan Deutsch Strasfeld and Jody Nudell; my daughters, Dr. Jennifer Forche and Rochelle Landy; my secretary, Mary Ann McCloskey; and my law partners and the staff at Roth, Blair, Roberts, Strasfeld & Lodge—all of whom cheered me on and helped me along the way. And most of all, thanks to my wife, JoAnn, who sacrificed a great deal of our time together so that I could maintain my law practice during the day and work on this book at night and on weekends, and who enthusiastically supported the entire project.
Well, Dad, I promised you in 1978 that I would someday publish your diary—and finally, with the help of all of these people, I fulfilled that promise!
JAMES LEDBETTER ACKNOWLEDGES:Bill Roth would never have contacted me in the fall of 2008 but for the September launch of The Big Money, and so for the ability to originally publish diary excerpts there, I thank Jacob Weisberg and John Alderman of the Slate Group, the Washington Post Company, and TBM’s fantastic staff. This is my second book with PublicAffairs, where there are some great new faces as well as some familiar ones. It is a rare pleasure in the book business to feel that you have an entire publishing house behind you. My agent, Chris Calhoun, put a lot of thinking and positioning into this project before taking it to market, which is why it has the success it has, for which I am very grateful.
The Youngstown Public Library, Ohio Historical Society, and Mahoning Valley Historical Society provided vital research material for this book. I’d particularly like to thank William Lawson of the Historical Society for his generosity with his time and insights. I am also grateful to the Library of Congress, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, and National Archives for providing the photographs that round out the diary.
Ultimately, the star of this book is Benjamin Roth’s diary, so I thank Bill and Dan Roth for letting me work on it, and their family for their support and enthusiasm.
The biggest acknowledgment must go to my wife, Erinn Bucklan. The amount of research, writing, and organizing she put into this book cannot be overstated. She threw herself into the project on a tight deadline and came through time and again, whether with the exact right photo or one more insight into the shortcomings of the Hoover administration. This book literally would not and could not exist without her.
BENJAMIN ROTH
was born in New York City in 1894 and moved shortly thereafter to Youngstown, Ohio. After serving as an Army officer during World War I, he returned to Youngstown to start a law practice which still operates today as Roth, Blair, Roberts, Strasfeld & Lodge, with his son, Daniel B. Roth, as chairman. Roth was very active in the community, including serving as president of the Mahoning County Bar Association and as a member of the Youngstown Board of Education. He continued to practice law for 59 years until his death in 1978. [Photo credit: Courtesy of Daniel B. Roth]
was born in New York City in 1894 and moved shortly thereafter to Youngstown, Ohio. After serving as an Army officer during World War I, he returned to Youngstown to start a law practice which still operates today as Roth, Blair, Roberts, Strasfeld & Lodge, with his son, Daniel B. Roth, as chairman. Roth was very active in the community, including serving as president of the Mahoning County Bar Association and as a member of the Youngstown Board of Education. He continued to practice law for 59 years until his death in 1978. [Photo credit: Courtesy of Daniel B. Roth]
JAMES LEDBETTER
is the editor of “The Big Money,”
Slate.com
’s Web site on business and economics. Prior to joining Slate, he was deputy managing editor of
CNNMoney.com
, a financial news site. His most recent book is
Dispatches for the New York Tribune: Selected Journalism of Karl Marx
. He is also the author of
Starving to Death on $200 Million: The Short, Absurd Life of the Industry Standard
and
Made Possible By...: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States
. He is a former senior editor of
Time
magazine and
The Industry Standard
, and former staff writer for
The Village Voice
. He lives in New York, NY. [Photo credit: Barry Marsden]
is the editor of “The Big Money,”
Slate.com
’s Web site on business and economics. Prior to joining Slate, he was deputy managing editor of
CNNMoney.com
, a financial news site. His most recent book is
Dispatches for the New York Tribune: Selected Journalism of Karl Marx
. He is also the author of
Starving to Death on $200 Million: The Short, Absurd Life of the Industry Standard
and
Made Possible By...: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States
. He is a former senior editor of
Time
magazine and
The Industry Standard
, and former staff writer for
The Village Voice
. He lives in New York, NY. [Photo credit: Barry Marsden]
DANIEL B. ROTH
is a lawyer, business executive, and venture capitalist. He is currently chairman of the Youngstown, Ohio law firm which was founded by his father, Benjamin Roth. He is also the chairman of both McDonald Steel Corporation and Torent, Inc. [Photo credit: Bob Knuff]
is a lawyer, business executive, and venture capitalist. He is currently chairman of the Youngstown, Ohio law firm which was founded by his father, Benjamin Roth. He is also the chairman of both McDonald Steel Corporation and Torent, Inc. [Photo credit: Bob Knuff]
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