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Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | 973.916 L | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
What was it like growing up in the Great Depression, and how did America's youngest citizens contribute to the history of that fateful decade? In The Greatest Generation Grows Up, Kriste Lindenmeyer shows that the experiences of depression-era children help us understand the course of the 1930s as well as the history of American childhood. For the first time, she notes, federal policy extended childhood dependence through the teen years while cultural changes reinforced this ideal of modern childhood. Grade-based grammar schools and high schools expanded rapidly, strengthening age-based distinctions among children and segregating them further from the world of adults. Radio broadcasters, filmmakers, and manufacturers began to market their products directly to children and teens, powerfully linking consumerism and modern childhood. In all, the thirties experience worked to confer greater identity on American children, and Ms. Lindenmeyer's story provides essential background for understanding the legacy of those men and women whom Tom Brokaw has called "America's greatest generation." While many children suffered terribly during these years--and are remembered vividly in the Farm Security Administration's stunning photographs of the era--Ms. Lindenmeyer argues that an exclusive focus on those who were ill-housed, ill-fed, and ill-clothed neglects the contributions and widely varied experiences of American youngsters. The decade's important changes touched the lives of all children and teenagers. By 1940, the image of an idyllic modern childhood had been strengthened in law and confirmed in culture by the depression years. With 21 black-and-white illustrations.
Author Notes
Kriste Lindenmeyer teaches history at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, she has also written A Right to Childhood and edited Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives and Politics of Progress. She lives in Owings Mills, Maryland.
Reviews (2)
Booklist Review
This latest volume in the American Childhoods series chronicles the lives and times of Americans who grew up during the Great Depression and entered adulthood during World War II. Lindenmeyer's aim is to show how children and adolescents both influenced and were the targets of important social and political changes. Chapter headlines relate Lindenmeyer's subject matter: Stable and Fragile Families in Hard Times, Work, If You Could Find It, Transient Youth: On the Road to Nowhere, and The Importance of Being Educated. Lindenmeyer rejects popular myths that idealize the past as a time of idyllic childhood, and this scrupulously researched book makes that point perfectly clear. She concludes that the 1930s model of childhood became the standard of modern American life but was unattainable for too many to make the dream a reality. This thought-provoking book, with 21 black-and-white illustrations, will encourage readers to reexamine their understanding of the 1930s and its effect on that generation. --George Cohen Copyright 2005 Booklist
Choice Review
The Great Depression was so devastating to most families that it truly acted as a watershed event in the lives of most children in the US. Lindenmeyer (Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County) demonstrates the growth of the idea that the federal government was responsible for promoting children's well-being. For the first time, the federal government, with its New Deal program, intervened in children's lives on a significant scale, enacting laws to end child labor and instituting financial aid to schools, foster care, public health, and dependent children. At the local level, compulsory attendance made high school a way of life for most adolescents. Lindenmeyer also covers children's play and entertainment and the Depression's commercialization of childhood. Her deeply researched history of US childhood escapes the distortions of "decade history" by deftly contextualizing these topics from their origins in the Roaring Twenties through their development in WW II. The analytic narrative is clear and concise, peppered with examples of the activities and behavior of children as seen through their own eyes. The result is a portrait of this remarkable decade that witnessed teenage tramps, sharecropper children, Nancy Drew, and Superman. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All libraries. E. W. Carp Pacific Lutheran University
