Today I shall be listening to The Confidence Man, which is the first of three programmes on the wireless about the New Deal.
A programme with echoes for today.
"In 1933 American's clamoured for new leadership and direction.
Their nation was at the epicentre of a global financial crisis.
A quarter of the working population unemployed. Farmers and workers in revolt, war veterans marching on the nation's capital.
The siren song of populists filled the airwaves. Franklin D. Roosevelt came to office amidst deep gloom with the banks about to fail.
'If I read the temper of our people correctly... we cannot merely take.. .we must give as well.'
Historian & writer Marybeth Hamilton explores the decade long experiment that was America's New Deal.
There was no blue print for restoring the nation's fortunes or fortitude but to Roosevelt, and those he gathered around him, it was clear that the future of capitalism & democracy were at stake.
With the voices of Tony Badger, Steve Fraser, Gary Gerstle, Gardiner Means, Eric Rauchway, Rob Snyder and Elizabeth Wickenden.
Producer: Mark Burman"*
Today at 11 am
Pictures; Migrant Mother,Florence Owens Thompson, mother of seven children, 32 years old, in Nipono, California, March 1936, looking for a job or social aid to support her family, and Tracy (vicinity), California. Missouri family of five who are seven months from the drought area on U.S. Highway 99. "Broke, baby sick, and car trouble!" (LOC description) February 1937, Dorothea Lange
*The Confidence Man, The New Deal - A Story For Our Times, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n70z
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