Hope in Hard Times: Norvelt and the Struggle for Community During the Great Depression

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Description

Of the many recipients of federal give a boost to all over the Great Depression, the citizens of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, stand out as model reminders of the vital importance of New Deal programs. Hoping to turn out to be their desperate situation, the 250 families of this western Pennsylvania town worked with the federal government to envision a new more or less community that would raise standards of living through a cooperative way of life and enhanced civic engagement. Their efforts won them a nearly mythic status among those familiar with Norvelt’s history.

Hope in Hard Times explores the many transitions faced by those who undertook this experiment. With assistance from the New Deal, these residents, who hailed from the hardworking and underserved class that Jacob Riis had known as the “other half” a generation earlier, created a middle-class community that would develop into an exemplar of the success of such programs. Despite this, many current residents of Norvelt—the children and grandchildren of the first inhabitants—oppose government intervention and give a boost to political candidates who advocate scrutinizing and even getting rid of public programs.

Authors Timothy Kelly, Margaret Power, and Michael Cary examine this still-unfolding narrative of transformation in one Pennsylvania town, and the struggles and successes of its original residents, against the backdrop of one of the crucial ambitious federal endeavors in U.S. history.

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