about being raised on lazy b. ranch and that was on c-span's booknotes program. you can watch it on line at booktv.org or at c-span.org. justice o'connor thanks for being with us on booktv. >> guest: thank you. ..

>> >> for

>> >> no one could survive without that fantastic resource. as you have heard i teach history at lassiter a cattery you should know teachers ask that i don't lecture we have class's around a normal table and it is discussion. i of not a lecture so this is a bit of an experiment. much like the early days. [laughter] a couple of weeks ago i was in new york city and to tour

at the museum if you ever have a chance, i'd do it. it was called hard times and featured a italian immigrants from the 1920's and '30's that lived in a three-room apartmentsoçy very dark even in the day. the building was built 1863. he was a cabinet maker fleer 1929 when jobs became fewer and farther between. there was not a lot of detail how they got by during these years but i suspect they had some assistance from their parish church or other charities. i know that they did get

some food allowances from the city because there were boxesd

that the jobless could look out for themselves or the neighbors perhaps. we went on to insist these charities said they read adequately equipped. but most private agencies were tapped out by this second or third year of the great depression 1932 one-third of charities were shut down entirely with nothing to distribute. it was hard times was a vast understatement. march 1933 roosevelt took office, 25 percent of the working population, a 50 million people, was unemployed. the u.s. steel mill in pennsylvania which employed only had 424 in 1932.

it overwhelmed the private agencies the cities and towns are not set up there was no safety net to speak of 1932 through 1933. the churches also in scottsdale pennsylvania the parish priest day to the investigator because he lost his credit at the drugstore. in new york city 1.2 5 million people were wholly dependent by 1933. more than 1 million needed help desperately and for not getting it yet. but from the 18 eighties a book called the other half the italian cabinet maker that has been memorialized

at the museum. you'd be surprised to hear that the amount of people suffered but it has also head deep defects joblessness lead to malnutrition and health problems and psychological despair. sooner or later homelessness for:and it affected the middle-class also. new york city operated as a series of been a simple shelters for the resort in central park also in the museum that just reopened. if you get a chance go lookout for that. the shelters not only for the marginal but they were described it will read a short passage that includes

the description for:. >> this would do this street municipal shelter built to capacity it served two meals a day mobile and black coffee red brown vegetables do sometimes with the goblet of beef bread that was stale and black coffee for supper. it was warm enough almost too warm and leave sleeping in the shelter issues in the storage compartments of all passenger steamers for:they were feeling alone or forgotten. other snored but after this 6:00 breakfast there we're

sent out to says streets. sometimes to the library branches there were a godsend still those in your city or from these towers. and then with those discarded newspapers. the population as a municipal shelters increased there was a clash of people have of them are not bums out all. there could be two possibilities to seek of bet at the foot of the east river. day were all over the place we being out the ship's.

the accommodations were clean but spartan whites and golden an improvement over the municipal shelters for: they caught the fish on friday. the less regimentation that on 25th street and they could smoke in the public rooms but it could last as long as five or six months. the reluctant to complain arbitrable for fear of being cast with the industry. >> my purpose of this book is elected that administration through 1933 to look at their effectiveness.

the book also offers during this period jacobson as an example with his qualities. facing almost entirely contemporary sources with a series from lorena hickok and former journalist to harry hopkins to started the federal emergency management administration. on the road summer of 1943 she filed as series of reports around the country. she said a private letters to eleanor roosevelt. it is her who got the job with hopkins. those letters by the way our emotional and pull detail about how americans were in

during the catastrophe. taken together they formed a record of how ordinary americans experience of the depression. with her reporting of these accounts in the places she visited letters and diary entries and memoirs seven fought -- items such as meals. and also saw with my own eyes said territory that was covered i recreated several of her trips balding as close as i could through kentucky coal country in upstate new york, northern maine and the border region minnesota in the accord -- the code is purple i was struck out a small-town main street changed a lot especially in the dakotas. and along the back roads is

of a reminder of this mountainous terrain. but all of those looking to resettle even in south dakota to of the top five. [laughter] that surprised you as much as me. i am not sure what it is. north dakota produces 1 million barrels of oil per day now. but in the thirties it was the hardest pressed in the united states bearing and a private. described that you do is i say our will send you to dakota. [laughter] she also alluded to the idea much discussed in the early days that fda mate -- if you're a major exercise powers if he ever does become dictator i have a

grand idea this country is siberia. cent lorena hickok your. a recipe for soup is in the book with her reports. it is fun to read for:and it is for real and must actually work. but with the slaves over the depression there was a short passage. >>'' around the territory lorena hickok came with a vengeance. coming through the press with the church and the prairie.

and the crops destroyed by the storms. with winter coming on their desperate for help.= some of the crops are being to the ground. outside the church most were substantial holders of at least 640 acres. at $10 an acre which is what was paid is $6,400 worth of land. if conditions were desperate to it was seen as hopeless but there was a process to

become a geologist to explore that was a half century ago as cultivation. looking at the head of cattle and hogs and chickens that was a favorable condition for lack of food. many animals would die of hunger or exposure in the winter. families were not much better off. we were two pairs of overalls and to jackets. and then going up through the of land.

but there is no money left for close. -- clothing cynic i didn't realize how important it was until i traveled through west virginia and kentucky. that environmental question and president obama having standards of coal a couple weeks ago it was a bipartisan condemnation through four states. this is a passage from the chapter entitled coal country. >> to gestured toward a hillside. we ought to go up there but it looks good. but on the other side there

would even push the church over the call for:mountains of removal and to efficiently exploit the coal near the surface. for what they call the overburden the rock that cover the seams. and then it goes to the upper reaches of the valley's. if this offers therh map in a shocking way. and kentucky seemed to be bitter. looking at 360 degrees, but

to stand historically more than by themselves. the passage just to the west of the city. we do support the call but it keeps the lights on. things have not changed much since the third days. with us to do our part in the same as backbend. >> lorena hickok reached coal countryt÷ she found the

endemic at a desperation first she had never seen anything like this purpose she encountered in an aggressive campaign organizer. here is some of what she found. >> laying in hammocks with the days inn in no hurry when the sun went down.

that we had the people had ever seen. the ross style from the 1860's. but with lorena hickok no one from african descent had been here. >> lorena hickok and others were astonished of most americans accepted the great depression. but they give traction to the intellectual class they're remarkable strength

coming it investment in the countrysideez it could be organized revolutionary agitation. and number two from new york city it was different. some of the most serious and sustained challenges occurred in the country. for one example from upstate new york there's shootings and hijackings. but according to wilson they dismiss them those from shooting out the tires of the trucks.

but all the same it was surprising. that wilson spent summers at the same place but no one does and mobs was running the country now about to end their life. he had written about it in massachusetts in investigating labor conditions in detroit. i have never seen such a serious man. and how many police were not

surprised. than your finest were not called. the crowd did not hesitate they marched out to. the mass increased. 2% shooting gas bombs at them and holding them as it was wrote to. troopers' fired the tear-gas

bombs but later it was the explanation of the calculation. >> and after a couple of weeks the crisis in the countryside was unavailable and in early september way below production she reported how farmers were shooting their cows for:even today it is difficult to measure the effects of the programs. the fdr"÷ programs did they make them better or how better did they make them? from the right in from the left nothing they have done so far that could not be done better by an earthquake

and to many on the right to but the supreme court would strike it down as unconstitutional in 1935 and fdr was vilified. that people never spent enough for asked enough? nothing else matters in comparison. but the speed must be weighed in cross before it is dark.

to take the advice to establish the administration and the fall of 1933. this is one program that worked for perot for hundreds of thousands of people that brought home cash wages handling for the first time in years was money and a 30 hour weeks at $0.40 an hour.h[ the one spot in the united states things were looking up and susu the iowa from 1933 mentioned. over 5,000 men with picks and shovels and real barros lined up and got paid money. the fdr dreaded budget deficits as much as he saw the homelessness. and turned back to be indispensable.

of the public works administration at its peak in 1938 to get along. fdr was a master of improv.nt he would say above all try something. a couple of anecdotes but it was passing with astonishing speed. another from iowa was part of a husband's paycheck and he was out of there two years with oranges. >> i have not tasted one in so long i forgot what they tasted like she told lorena hickok. then a gentleman at of works as a teen 30 allowed his

daughter to order the high-school class ring. so i got the ring. lorena hickok told him and it was the impression how fast the new deal was going through and he thought for sure he should have a job by now. the job ended bet a week or so he was back on relief. most of the time with that kind of work we cannot do this or that because we cannot afford it. the that procedural risk and told to go ahead to get the

reprimand to turner to the judge said on monday morning. and now i am happy to take questions. [applause] >> i see from the small script from the academy being fair 14 years the most exclusive and expensive 4;b÷-country if not in the entie world. i doubt if many children are boys and girls in your class can relate to what you write about in your book for:i am curious how you interacted with them and what their responses were. >> actually students come

from all over the place and all types of backgrounds. we also have a lot of people on financial aid. over 40%. so it is a meritocracy. but with the students by and large are fairly conservative end dash achieving students and they tend to think if they can so can you. relating to use the depression people think that they need to help but is part of the u.s. history program.

>> my name is kathy. i was then neighbor of lorena hickok. i read your book. it was great to see how this person that lived diagonally across the street from me what she actually did to record all of this history for the country. it was amazing to me to see how she went from maine to florida to texas to california to the dakotas and what she actually documented for history. i just want you to know that at one time we took a whole

boat -- busload of people from here to wester genius to see the coal mining area and to see what she and eleanor roosevelt accomplished. i still keep in touch with the executive director today. it is a community where they started with 50 homes for the coal miners now has 150. i suggest every beddy-bye the book. and the other thing is several years ago there was a one-woman show about the life of lorena hickok being that she was my neighbor i was interested to see what would be shown. i was impressed that i never really finish the book on the life of lorena hickok

but it said her remains were handled by the funeral home and i often thought i wonder ricci is buried. so i called them three times and they got back to me and said by new york state law they have to keep her ashes for three years they kept them 20 and no one ever claimed them so they buried them in the unmarked grave in the ride back cemetery for after that i thought that was terrible. this is eleanor roosevelt's friends of the most famous female rider in the administration for the associated press. are prodded to the attention of the people who put on the play. we had a fund-raiser and several people came a biographer and others and we

raised enough money to put in a stone bench and a plaque in the runbacks cemetery in memory of lorena hickok. [applause] thank you. >> a couple of comments. she was by herself on these trips including cross-country. and i tried to recreate themx( and i dredged up some of her associated press writings issue was quite good. one in particular she was assigned to cover the passage of harding's trading carrying warren g. harding and she wrote a fabulous piece.

and she would do those that night after she was dead tired. of course, i did the excerpt and recorded bits and pieces but it is in it's entirety. [applause] >> we can sign books for you out8g front. [inaudible conversations]

booktv would ask about the nonfiction books their most anticipating being published here is a look at the titles chosen by the new york public library. starting off suki kim remembers teaching english to the north korea each purple without you there is no us in the underground girls jenny reports on the practice of a girl temporarily raised as a boy in afghanistan. also on the list for the most anticipated fall titles is hard trigger professor's book that feminism and the creation of a female super hero in the secret history of wonder woman. in a pack of years