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Outside/Inside: Growing Up in the Great Depression
Outside/Inside: Growing up in the Great Depression is a memoir looking back at an impoverished childhood in the South Bronx slums during the Great Depression years of the 1930s. Don Croton, born in 1925, describes with bitterness but with gallows humor the survival strategies of a family of seven children, a mother’s life-long sorrows when her Orthodox Jewish parents sit shivah (the ritual for the dead) when she marries an English Protestant, and a father’s guilt as he futilely searches for work to put “eats on the table”.
This memoir is not just the story of one family in the stark days of the Great Depression. Its experience is framed by the author, an economist, year by year against the background of President Hoover’s failed policies and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
In the preface the author sees more than a personal reason for telling his story: “…since the United States may continue on the brink of another Great Depression or a long-term Recession, this witness from one of the last survivors of the Great Depression of the 1930s might serve as a warning about the enduring damage caused by the poison of poverty, and an urgent plea for bold initiatives to avoid more pain.”
Don Croton’s educational background includes a Master's Degree in Economics from Columbia University and studies towards a doctorate in Economics at the University of Michigan. His working experience includes Teaching Fellow at the University of Michigan, economist for several major corporations, a two-year assignment from the Rockefeller Brothers' Fund to develop employment opportunities in impoverished areas of the United States, and ten years as a management consultant specializing in strategic planning. He lives in France.
This memoir is not just the story of one family in the stark days of the Great Depression. Its experience is framed by the author, an economist, year by year against the background of President Hoover’s failed policies and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
In the preface the author sees more than a personal reason for telling his story: “…since the United States may continue on the brink of another Great Depression or a long-term Recession, this witness from one of the last survivors of the Great Depression of the 1930s might serve as a warning about the enduring damage caused by the poison of poverty, and an urgent plea for bold initiatives to avoid more pain.”
Don Croton’s educational background includes a Master's Degree in Economics from Columbia University and studies towards a doctorate in Economics at the University of Michigan. His working experience includes Teaching Fellow at the University of Michigan, economist for several major corporations, a two-year assignment from the Rockefeller Brothers' Fund to develop employment opportunities in impoverished areas of the United States, and ten years as a management consultant specializing in strategic planning. He lives in France.
396 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 7, 2010
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March 21, 2022
A great history lesson!
Written in an untraditional style, this memoir is a fantastic window into what it was like to live during the Depression of the '30s in the Bronx. It is both heartbreaking and humorous. It gave me such insight into that era. A great read!
Written in an untraditional style, this memoir is a fantastic window into what it was like to live during the Depression of the '30s in the Bronx. It is both heartbreaking and humorous. It gave me such insight into that era. A great read!
Displaying 1 of 1 review