# Emotional Life of the Great Depression - Hardcover

by **John Marsh** (Author)

_The Emotional Life of the Great Depression_ documents how Americans responded emotionally to the crisis of the Great Depression. Unlike most books about the 1930s, which focus almost exclusively on the despair of the American people during the decade, this volume explores the 1930s through other, equally essential emotions: righteousness, panic, fear, awe, love, and hope.

In expanding the canon of Great Depression emotions, the book draws on an eclectic archive of sources, including the ravings of a would-be presidential assassin, stock market investment handbooks, a Cleveland serial murder case, Jesse Owens's record-setting long jump at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, King Edward VIII's abdication from his throne to marry a twice-divorced American woman, and the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. In concert with these, it offers new readings of the imaginative literature of the period, from obscure Christian apocalyptic novels and H.P. Lovecraft short stories to classics like John Steinbeck's _The Grapes of Wrath_ and Richard Wright's _Native Son_. The result is a new take on the Great Depression, one that emphasizes its major events (the stock market crash, unemployment, the passage of the Social Security Act) but also, and perhaps even more so, its sensibilities, its structures of feeling.

### Author Biography

John Marsh, _Associate Professor of English, The Pennsylvania State University_

John Marsh Associate Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of _In Walt We Trust: How a Queer Socialist Poet Can Save America from Itself, Class Dismissed: Why We Cannot Teach or Learn Our Way out of Inequality_ and _Hog Butchers, Beggars, and Busboys: Poverty, Labor, and the Making of Modern American Poetry_. In addition to these, he is the editor of _You Work Tomorrow: An Anthology of American Labor Poetry, 1929-1941_.  

**Number of Pages:** 318

**Dimensions:** 1.2 x 9.3 x 6.2 IN

**Publication Date:** December 31, 2019

## Details

- **Price:** 104.31 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 104.31 USD | In stock |

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- Emotional Life of the Great Depression - Hardcover

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