The Great Panic of 1893

As I’ve mentioned before, occasionally an event, or person, or book, or idea begins tracking me down.[1] It shows up in footnotes or casual asides in books I’m reading. Eventually, I give in and go down the rabbit hole. Then, if it’s interesting or important enough, I share it with you. That is, after all,…

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In Which I Stand Corrected

In a recent post, writing about the Civilian Conservation Corps, which provided jobs and job training for some three million unemployed men between the ages of 18 and 25 from 1933 and 1942, I stated that that there was nothing similar for young women. A regular and valued reader of this blog immediately and politely…

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Déjà Vu All Over Again: The Bonus Expeditionary Forces March on Washington

And while we’re talking about failures of compassion and the Great Depression, as I believe we were, consider the example of the Bonus Expeditionary Forces’ march on Washington—a story with uncomfortable modern-day echoes Bonus payments to World War I veterans were a hot political subject in the years after 1919. Congress passed bills approving bonuses…

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