they have no fight in them, josephson said. they are reluctant to complain or make trouble for fear of being cast into the streets. my purpose with this book was to present the great depression as a lived experience. and another was to take a close look at the programs of the early new deal, the national recovery administration, public works administration and the civil works administration to name three. and to try the assets their effectiveness. it wasn't my intent, but the book also offers a sort of history of the journalism of this period. especially magazine journalism. jay cobbson as an example. and much of that of outstanding quality. the narrative is based almost entirely on contemporary work starting with a series of reports from lorena hickok, a former journalist, to harry hopkins who headed the first national welfare agency in history, the federal emergency relief administration. hopkins sent hickok on the road in the summer of 1930, and over the following 18 months she filed a series of reports from around the count