Four voices from the Great Depression

Summary

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Throughline (NPR): “Four Voices from the Great Depression” (May 12, 2026)

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of Throughline dives into the lived experiences of four individuals during the Great Depression, illuminating the era’s hardships and resilience through first-person narratives. Hosts Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei use diary entries, oral histories, and essays—brought to life by actors—to immerse listeners in a multifaceted portrait of the 1930s crisis. The stories span race, gender, and geography, challenging the one-size-fits-all narrative of Depression-era suffering.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Setting the Stage: What Was the Great Depression?

• Rund Abdelfatah introduces the Great Depression as “one of the worst economic disasters in modern history,” marked by unemployment, hunger, homelessness, and general insecurity regarding the country's future. (00:50–01:14)

Introducing the Four Voices

Hosted reenactments profile:

• Henry Wright, a self-described “hobo” in search of adventure
• Meridel Le Sueur, a Midwestern writer chronicling urban women’s struggles
• Fung, a Chinese American laborer in San Francisco's Chinatown
• Dorothy Height, a college student and emerging activist in Harlem

“Four people, four vastly different experiences from different ethnic and racial backgrounds from all over the United States.”
—Rund Abdelfatah (01:32)

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Segment Summaries with Notable Quotes & Timestamps

Henry Wright: The Hobo Adventurer

• Wright describes his transient lifestyle: riding trains, scraping by, and observing the desperation around him.
• Humorous yet haunting, his story reflects the uncertain masculinity and camaraderie of the era.

“I never missed a meal, but I postponed a few.”
—Henry Wright (Jamie York) (02:02, 11:15)

• He recalls the “2,000 depression stiffs” lined up at St. Francis Church for a nickel, and streetwise lingo about “flops” (places to sleep for 30 cents).
• Despite hardship, Wright frames parts of his journey with pride and masculine bravado: scavenging, fighting, and narrowly escaping police while surviving on the streets.

“We went to Oakland on the chili pepper and crossed the bay on the hobos ferry to San Francisco.”
—Henry Wright (Jamie York) (11:15)

Meridel Le Sueur: Urban Women’s Invisible Hunger

• Le Sueur’s vignettes (read by Natalie Barton) evoke the silent suffering of women, particularly their absence from breadlines—and social statistics—because of stigma and lack of resources.

“It's one of the great mysteries of the city where women go when they are out of work and hungry… Yet there must be as many women out of jobs in cities and suffering poverty as there are men. What happens to them? Where do they go?”
—Meridel Le Sueur (08:05)

• She questions charity’s selectivity—how “the lone girl is under suspicion by the virgin women who dispense charity.”

“A woman will shut herself up in a room until it's taken away from her and eat a cracker a day and be as quiet as a mouse so that there are no social statistics concerning her.”
—Meridel Le Sueur (09:01)

• Le Sueur’s empathy extends to working women forced to continuous, exhausting labor without hope of security:

“It is appalling to think that these women sitting so listless in the room may work as hard as is possible for a human being to work… and never earn one day of security.”
—Le Sueur (17:26)

Fung: The Chinatown Laborer & American Exclusion

• Fong (“Call me Fong”) frames his experience with directness and wry humor about his perpetual lack of money.

“During the depression, I was so broke, quite often I was with no money in my pocket. The most I ever had is maybe one or two dollars… Well, normally I got 10, 15 cents.”
—Fung (Lawrence Wu) (03:09, 10:43)

• He describes the improvisational economy in Chinatown (meat sold door-to-door) and takes the audience into the lived reality of being marginalized labor—a helper, a waiter, dishwasher, always “pushed down to these jobs.”

• Fong’s skepticism toward Roosevelt’s New Deal—especially the National Recovery Act (NRA)—reflects the limits of federal aid for minorities:

“Like that NRA was like all the other things… in the long run, you find out it will never have any advantage toward the Chinese.”
—Fung (15:53)

Dorothy Height: Community and Activism in Harlem

• Height’s recollections—brought to life by Kia Miaconates—blend personal fortune (having food and shelter) with a strong sense of community suffering.

“In a strange way, everybody had a feeling of common suffering. There was a kind of sense that everybody's having a hard time.”
—Dorothy Height (05:53)

• She highlights grassroots organizing, specifically under the leadership of Adam Clayton Powell, promoting economic activism:

“He taught us that no matter how little you had, your power was in what you did with it. And that, to me, was an indelible lesson.”
—Dorothy Height (12:58)

• Height underscores the collective resolve to claim agency:

“You can take your own condition in your own hands. And that was the time that he started the movement to get jobs on 125th Street.”
—Height (13:42)

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Historical & Political Context

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Voice

• The episode includes reenactments of FDR’s addresses contextualizing government efforts (“mobilization for a great undertaking,” the New Deal, NRA, employment initiatives) and recognizing the era’s widespread fear and insecurity:

“The very thing that is a stumbling block to one man is a springboard to another. The very thing that crushes one man elevates another. Many have lost the savings of a lifetime. Many are unemployed. All know the misgivings of doubt and the grave concern for the future.”
—FDR (06:31)

• The sound design fuses government ambition with the reality on the ground, often underscored by the narrators’ skepticism and weary pragmatism.

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• The contradiction between “hunger amidst plenty” (01:00)
• The “animal terror in each other’s eyes” (01:25)
• The invisible nature of women’s poverty in cities (08:05, 09:01)
• Fung’s recollections of “bumming financiers” and the stinginess of the rich (16:59)
• Height’s summary of Depression-era solidarity:

  “You didn't have a feeling that some people were making it and some were suffering. But at the same time, everybody had to compete with everybody for the scarce things that there were.”
  —Dorothy Height (05:53)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:50–01:32: Introduction to the Great Depression’s scope and emotional impact
• 02:02–03:20: Introduction of all four primary voices
• 05:53–06:31: Dorothy Height on collective suffering and competition
• 08:05–09:01: Le Sueur on the invisibility of women in poverty
• 10:07–10:43: Fung on street-level economics in Chinatown
• 11:15–11:44: Henry Wright’s cross-country travels and scenes of hardship
• 12:58–13:42: Height on Black community organizing in Harlem
• 14:28–15:53: Fung on the limits of New Deal programs for minorities

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Conclusion & Final Insights

By weaving together the voices of Henry, Meridel, Fung, and Dorothy, the episode paints a textured, deeply human portrait of the 1930s. It challenges the dominant narrative of the Great Depression—typically told through images of breadlines and “Depression stiffs”—and instead reveals the ache, ingenuity, and resilience on the streets, in tenement rooms, and across marginalized communities.

“The Great Depression left a lasting imprint on the people who lived it.”
—Rund Abdelfatah (01:32)

The episode sets up next week’s focus on Frances Perkins and the shaping of Social Security, linking the lived realities explored here to the policy responses that followed.

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Cast & Credits

• Henry Wright: Jamie York
• Meridel Le Sueur: Natalie Barton
• Fung: Lawrence Wu
• Dorothy Height: Kia Miaconates
• Hosts: Rund Abdelfatah & Ramtin Arablouei

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For listeners seeking a humanized, nuanced, and richly-voiced look at the Great Depression, this Throughline episode offers a tapestry of lived truths—infused with empathy and unflinching realism.

Transcript

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[Rund Abdelfatah]

This is America in Pursuit, a limited run series from Throughline and npr. I'm Rund Abdelfatah. Each week we bring you stories about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the United states that began 250 years ago.

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

There are no jobs. Most of us have had no breakfast. Some have had scant rations for over a year. Hunger makes a human being lapse into a state of lethargy, especially city hunger.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The Great Depression was one of the worst economic disasters in modern history. It started in 1929 and lasted through the next decade.

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

Is there any place else in the world where a human being is supposed to go hungry amidst plenty, without an outcry, without protest, where only the boldest steal or kill for bread and the timid crawl the streets?

[Rund Abdelfatah]

It was marked by massive unemployment, hunger, homelessness and a general sense that the country's future was in peril.

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

It's too terrible to see this animal terror in each other's eyes.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The Great Depression left a lasting imprint on the people who lived it. So today on the show, we want to immerse you in the era and let the people who lived through it tell their own stories. Stories captured in oral histories, diaries and essays brought to life through reenactment. Four people, four vastly different experiences from different ethnic and racial backgrounds from all over the United States.

[Jamie York (voice of Henry Wright)]

My name is Henry Wright. I never missed a meal, but I postponed a few.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Henry Wright went looking for adventure in the Great Depression. Riding the rails from coast to coast. He learned things about himself and the world with a certain amount of pride. He called himself a hobo, bouncing from city to city, seeking his fortune.

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

Is this thing on? Oh, hello.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Meridel Lasour was a writer, born and raised in the Midwest.

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

I've lived in cities for many months. Broke, without help, too timid to get in the breadlines.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Merdel spent the Depression in unemployment offices and soup kitchens, talking to people, mostly women, documenting what she saw and heard.

[Lawrence Wu (voice of Fung)]

I was so broke, quite often I was with no money in my pocket. The most I ever had is maybe one or two dollars. The lease was. Well, normally I got 10, 15 cents. You can call me Fong.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Fung spent the Great Depression in San Francisco's Chinatown. He experienced the era at the street level and the everyday minutiae of economic struggle.

[Kia Miaconates (voice of Dorothy Height)]

Hello, I'm Dorothy Height. In a strange way, everybody had a feeling of common suffering. There was the kind of sense that everybody's having a hard time.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Dorothy Height grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania, and when the Great Depression hit home, she was eager to escape to the big city for college. She moved to Harlem in New York, but as luck would have it, the Depression would follow her there.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Henry Meridell Fong and Dorothy's stories, captured in oral histories, diaries and essays, give us a window into what it was like to live through this time, a moment that often gets reduced to one archetype of American suffering. Their stories, their voices are the ones we don't generally hear.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

So with that, we give you four lives of the Great Depression.

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[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

The world changes every hour. So do we on NPR News now, the podcast that brings the latest headlines

[Rund Abdelfatah]

in five minutes, with new episodes posted

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

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Ready when you are. Listen to NPR News now on the

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

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[Kia Miaconates (voice of Dorothy Height)]

In a strange way, everybody had a feeling of common suffering. There was a kind of sense that everybody's having a hard time. You didn't have a feeling that some people were making it and some were suffering. But at the same time, everybody had to compete with everybody for the scarce things that there were.

[Historical Figure/Franklin D. Roosevelt (voice)]

My fellow citizens, this broadcast tonight marks the beginning of the mobilization of the whole nation for a great undertaking to provide security for those of our citizens and their families who, through no fault of their own, face unemployment and privation during the coming winter. In the shadow of the elevated a nickel is Still, a piece of money and everything can be bought, from a 10 cent necktie to a 30 cent flop, which means a place to sleep. The very fact that the young men and women of today have nothing easy to look forward to is a good thing for them. Because the very thing that is a stumbling block to one man is a springboard to another. The very thing that crushes one man elevates another. Many have lost the savings of a lifetime. Many are unemployed. All know the misgivings of doubt and the grave concern for the future. On church steps after dusk are sprawled unfortunates who must be up at the crack of dawn for a front spot in the bread line of Mr. Zero, who somehow manages to obtain food for men who don't seem able to get it for themselves.

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

It's one of the great mysteries of the city where women go when they are out of work and hungry. There are not many women in the breadlines. There are no flop houses for women as there are for men, where a bed can be had for a quarter or less. You don't see women lying on the floor at the mission in these free flops. They obviously don't sleep in the jungle or under newspapers in the park. There is no law, I suppose, against their being in these places, but the fact is they rarely are. Yet there must be as many women out of jobs in cities and suffering poverty as there are men. What happens to them? Where do they go?

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This is from Meridell Le Sour's essay called Women on the Breadline. It was published in 1932 in a Marxist publication called New Masses.

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

Try to get into the YW without any money or looking down at the heel. Charities take care of very few and only those that are called deserving. The lone girl is under suspicion by the virgin. Women who dispense charity. I've lived in cities for many months, broke, without help, too timid to get in breadlines. I've known many women to live like this until they simply faint on the street from privations without saying a word to anyone. A woman will shut herself up in a room until it's taken away from her and eat a cracker a day and be as quiet as a mouse so that there are no social statistics concerning her.

[Lawrence Wu (voice of Fung)]

You have guys going around from building to building selling meat. They sell pork for 25 cents, 35 cents a pound cheaper than the butcher shop. And you don't have to walk around. They come to you.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

What we know about Fong comes from oral history interviews that he gave in San Francisco's Chinatown when he was 67 decades after the depression ended, he was a big man. He wore a windbreaker and an old woolen sailor's cap, navy blue. He didn't say where he lived or his name. He just said, call me Fong.

[Lawrence Wu (voice of Fung)]

Now, during the depression, I was so broke, quite often I was with no money in my pocket. The most I ever had is maybe one or two dollars. The lease was. Well, normally I got 10, 15 cents.

[Jamie York (voice of Henry Wright)]

I never missed a meal, but I postponed a few. We went to Oakland on the chili pepper and crossed the bay on the hobos ferry to San Francisco.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

For Henry Wright, the great depression was a journey. Born in Missouri in the early 20th century, Henry grew up in an orphanage. At age 16, he got kicked out with just $20 and a change of clothes. So with few options, he set out to find adventure.

[Jamie York (voice of Henry Wright)]

The skid row was full of bums. About noon, we passed the St. Francis Church. There were about 2,000 depression stiffs lined up. The priest was giving each a nickel as they filed by one at a time, some going around the block to line up again. It's not a very fast way of getting rich. We celebrated Christmas in Oakland. It was on the main drag, on new year's eve in Oakland that I got in another inevitable fight. It lasted nearly a block past a swell theater and ended up when a voice behind me said, beat it, the cops. I escaped down a side street and down an alley.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Dorothy height was living in harlem, New York, at this time. She was a college student, and she knew she was lucky. She had food to eat, a roof over her head. So she wanted to find a way to do something to help where she could.

[Kia Miaconates (voice of Dorothy Height)]

Well, there were all kinds of organizing efforts in the churches. One of the most significant ones, I think, was at the time that we realized that we were spending what little money we had and were getting nothing. And Adam Powell came into the picture, and he organized a people's committee. And what he called for was that we learned to spend no money where we could not work. And he taught us that no matter how little you had, your power was in what you did with it. And that, to me, was an indelible lesson.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Dorothy had also seen the depression destroy her hometown, but it was in Harlem that she saw how resilient people could be in the face of utter desperation.

[Kia Miaconates (voice of Dorothy Height)]

When Adam Powell called this group together, he said to us, you can take your own condition in your own hands. And that was the time that he started the movement to get jobs on 125th Street.

[Historical Figure/Franklin D. Roosevelt (voice)]

In June 1933, Washington became the spawning ground for what was perhaps the most startling egg ever hatched by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, the National Recovery Act. Aim of the NRA was government control of major American industries through codes of fair dealing. These fixed maximum hours and minimum wages.

[Lawrence Wu (voice of Fung)]

Roosevelt come out and he created the word NRA gave work to people, a lot of guys, but later on it got so sour, like they got jobs, for instance. I went in on one of them, a railroad job inside elko. They paid $72, I think, and they gave you jobs like that so you can make a living. And I worked there a few months. It was awfully hot. Hot like everything. In fact, you could see the blaze in the afternoon when the sun shines so blazing, you can actually see the atmosphere of it. Just the blaze moving around hotly. And people come back working in the railroad, they come back for dinner, they practically stink because their clothing been in the sunlight so damn long. And that's the way it is in

[Historical Figure/Franklin D. Roosevelt (voice)]

the working out of a great national program that seeks the primary good of the greater number. It is true that the toes of some people are being stepped on and are going to be stepped on, stepped on. But these tolls belong to the comparative few who seek to retain or to gain position or riches or both by some shortcut that is harmful to the greater good.

[Lawrence Wu (voice of Fung)]

I lived out there. You don't go nowhere. It's right out in the middle of the desert. See, that's the way it is. I did almost any kind of work, but nevertheless, at that time, I was nothing but a helper, a waiter, dishwasher, and all that. See, they're always trying to push you down to these jobs, no matter how much or how good you are. Like that NRA was like all the other things. At first you don't realize, but nevertheless, in due time and in the long run, you find out it will never have any advantage. Toward the Chinese,

[Jamie York (voice of Henry Wright)]

I met a fellow on the corner of Wall street who from casual observance would have been taken for an office worker or a dapper salesman with his panama hat, his nice suit and his sports shoes. After I introduced myself, he said he wasn't having much luck.

[Lawrence Wu (voice of Fung)]

I've been bombing them right and left

[Jamie York (voice of Henry Wright)]

since the morning rush, and I've only made 290. I. I thought that seemed like a good day's work at 50 cents an hour.

[Lawrence Wu (voice of Fung)]

Trouble with me is that they know me too well, and when they see me coming, they cross the street. It does give me pleasure, though, to bum some of those big financiers. But it seems to break their heart to jarlus a dime.

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

It is appalling to think that these women sitting so listless in the room may work as hard as it is possible for a human being to work, may labor night and day, wash streetcars from midnight to dawn and offices in the early Evening, scrubbing for 14 and 15 hours a day, sleeping only five hours or so, doing this their whole lives and never earn one day of security, having always before them the pit of the future, The endless labor, the bending back, the water soaked hands, earning never more than a week's wages, never having in their hands more life than that.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

By the mid-1930s, more people were returning to work and people like Henry, Dorothy, Meridell and Fong forged ahead. But the memories of the Great Depression would continue to linger for years. And that's it for this week's episode of America in Pursuit. If you want to hear the full length episode, check out Lives of the Great Depression and be sure to join us next week. We're going to stay with the Great Depression and turn to the story of Frances Perkins, the first woman Secretary of Labor who saw the nation suffering and pushed for solutions.

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

They needed to have a system that would provide some income support for people when they get to the phase of their lives where they're simply less employable.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The woman behind Social Security and the New Deal. That's next week. Don't miss it. This episode was produced by Kiana Moghadam and edited by Christina Kim with help from the Throughlong production team. Thank you to our amazing cast.

[Jamie York (voice of Henry Wright)]

I'm Jamie York. I was the voice of Henry Wright, my grandfather.

[Lawrence Wu (voice of Fung)]

I'm Lawrence Wu and I played Fung.

[Narrator/Reader of Meridel Le Sueur's writings]

I'm Natalie Barton. I read the writings of Meridell Le Sueur.

[Kia Miaconates (voice of Dorothy Height)]

My name is Kia Miaconates and I was the voice of Dorothy Height.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The soundtrack for this episode was composed and performed by one of our favorite artists, Hania Rani. You also heard music by Ramtin Adablouei and his band Drop Electric. Special thanks to Julie Cain, Irene Noguchi, Beth Donovan, Casey minor and Lindsey McKenna. I'm your host, Rund Abdelfattah. Thanks for listening.

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