The Great Depression Diary of Youngstown
Events, Youngstown — Posted on October 19, 2009 at 7:07 pmMy friend and neighbor, John Russo, likes to say that Youngstown’s story is America’s story. As we look around at the shifting economic situation and how it’s altered the fortunes and livelihoods of so many it’s impossible to disagree.
Earlier this month when Mayor Williams, David Skolnick and I spoke on Nevada Public Radio’s “State of Nevada,” the Mayor encouraged Las Vegas not to be tempted to view their current economic struggles as a flash in the pan.
“Don’t wait. We got caught waiting for the future. There was this notion that, somehow, another industry was going to come and fill the void that the steel mills left. … Don’t think that somehow this is just going to be a bump in the road. You have to plan for a much more diversified economy. You have to emotionally prepare the citizens.”
In order to understand the present, we turn to the past. This month, in time with the 80th anniversary of Black Tuesday–the 29th–The Great Depression: A Diary is available in in your local bookstore.
The diary itself was kept by Youngstown lawyer Benjamin Roth. His diary covers the events around him from 1931 to 1941. “It has become popular to wear old clothes,” is one of the observations he shares from a people adjusting to a new way of life in 1931. In what feels like an agonizing update almost ten years later, a 1940 entry reads, “Again we face a new year and the depression of 1929–now 10 years old and not yet completed. My children have known only blackest depression.”
James Ledbetter, the editor of a Slate.com Web site covering business and economics, along with Benjamin’s son Daniel B. Roth, a lawyer, business executive and venture capitalist, worked to edit the diary into book form. Daniel Roth perhaps embodies both Youngstown’s small-town present–as a dutiful son carrying on the leadership of the local law firm his father founded–and its city-of-industry past–as the chairman of McDonald Steel Corporation. Benjamin encouraged Daniel “to study the diary so that I could gain insight into the Depression mentality of [my father's] clients.”
A promotional piece for the book defines its contribution to history: “[it] illuminates the Great Depression as it was lived by average folks, grappling with a swiftly changing economy and anxiety about the unknown future.”
When I hear news stories promising that our economy is turning the corner, I will not soon forget the irony of a May 1933 diary entry, written seven years before Roth bemoans the “blackest depression” known by his children: “Sentiment grows stronger that the depression has been broken.”
Take some time this week to get your hands on this book. You can even get it signed and talk with the editors. Here’s the schedule of events:
October 20, Tuesday: Jim Ledbetter and Daniel Roth will make a presentation at Joseph-Beth Bookstore, located at Legacy Village in Cleveland. 7pm.
October 21, Wednesday: Jim Ledbetter and Daniel Roth will be at Barnes & Noble in Boardman. 7pm.
October 24, Saturday: Youngstown State University together with the Mahoning Valley Historical Society and the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor will be sponsoring a cocktail party and book signing. 4pm.
If you live outside the Mahoning Valley, you can find the books at these university bookstores:
Miami University (Ohio), University of Nebraska, Walsh University, Vanderbilt, Olde Dominion, Williams College, University of California (Berkeley), Stanford, Georgetown and Notre Dame.
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Tags: economy, history
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5 Comments
This book should be required reading for all our leaders.
I’m currently reading “Age Of Roosevelt” by Schlesinger, although there are many similarities, this economic depression, I’m afraid, is going to be much worse. During the great depression, our government was a creditor nation and not insolvent. Herein lies the mystery, simply put, the private sector was always able to fund the public sector. Today the private sector barely exist.
Take a good look around Youngstown, the largest employers are the public sector, where is their funding coming from?
*** Please note that I will not be signing books, but rather, my father Daniel Roth and the co-editor, James Ledbetter will be signing books at the locations mentioned above. ***
Thanks for the correction. I’ve updated the post.
I recently completed the book and I’m amazed at the similarities between the Great Depression and our current economic crisis. I can’t recommend this book highly enough as it provides readers with the unique perspective of both a macro and a micro economic view of the depression, and what’s more I recognize the street names. Awesome!
I just rec’d this book yesterday and I couldn’t put it down. For many years, I have been a student of economics in our free enterprise society. This book except for the dates, is exactly what is happening to our great country, we are in deep dodo. I’m afraid it is going to get much worse from hereon and we are only seeing the tip of the ice berg. The diary shows how the snowball effect has a life of its own and that consumption plummets followed by supply. Although circulation stopped during the great depression, money today is circulating thru printing and debt. What we do not know is what will be the outcome of this practice. My observation, anarchy when suppliers no longer want our currency.