New York: Public Affairs Committee, 1939. First Edition. 12mo. Staple-bound pamphlet; pictorial thick paper wrappers; 32pp. Clean and tight, with a few instances of faint pencile underlining; Very Good or better. Issued as "Public Affairs Pamphlet no. 34." Depression-era analysis of social and economic factors in criminal behavior, including racial..... More
New York: Public Affairs Committee, 1937. First Edition. 12mo. Staple-bound pamphlet; pictorial thick paper wrappers; 32pp. Clean, tight and unmarked; Very Good or better. Issued as "Public Affairs Pamphlet no. 15." Depression-era analysis of the American steel industry under the National Recovery Act. More
Washington DC: Public Affairs Committee, (1937). First edition. Staple-bound pamphlet. Printed wrappers; 32pp. Mild tanning to text; Near Fine. Analysis of health care costs during Great Depression, redacted from the 28 volume 20th Century Fund report. More
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1935. First Edition. Quintessentially bleak novel of the Great Depression, written by a West Virginia drifter who famously scribbled his story down on scrap paper scrounged on the streets, in boxcars, and in hobo jungles. The novel was highly praised upon publication, but Kromer never..... More
Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1940. First Edition. A Brooklyn family on relief relocates to dustbowl-era Oklahoma, where they organize local farmers to stage a sit-down strike for redistribution of food and land. Based on actual events. Rothermell authored several well-written novels, and worked on the New York Federal Writers' Project. HANNA 3076..... More
!["Trash?" [Anonymous manuscript poem of 149 lines (5pp) in the voice of a Depression-era refugee]....](/pictures/medium/19704.jpg?v=1554245953)
N.p. N.d. A highly accomplished and moving long poem written in the voice of an unemployed mill-town woman during the Great Depression. Unattributed and undated, but apparently (based on paper and degree of wear) contemporary with the events described. Whether actually written by an unemployed mill-worker's wife or by a "trained"..... More
New York: The Vanguard Press, 1934. First Edition. Attractive copy of this collection of short stories set in Chicago, full of the same grim realism found in Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy. The stories first appeared in the pages of The American Mercury, The New Masses, Dynamo, Story, A Year Magazine..... More
New York: Covici-Friede, Publishers, 1932. First Edition. Scarce second novel by the Michigan-born author, set in Lansing and Detroit, and chronicling the life of a working-class Michigan girl in middle-class society. Herrmann lived in Paris in the 1920's, where he was part of the famous expatriate circle of American writers..... More
New York: House of Field, 1941. First Edition. Strike novel, set in the fictional industrial center of "Rollinsburg." The author, described in the jacket blurb as "a worker in those phases of the momentous labor movement that in 1933 were launched as the New Deal's noblest advenure," offers a grim..... More
Pasadena: By the Author, 1935. First Edition. Satirical stage drama, based on Sinclair's 1933 pamphlet "The Way Out." Produced as a fund-raiser during Sinclair's EPIC campaign, but probably never staged since. Unlike most other Sinclair works from this period, there was no simultaneous issue from a trade publisher. According to..... More
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938. First Edition. A worker's life and hard times in the Detroit auto industry, written by a one-time Ford employee. The inscribee, Paul Jordan-Smith (1885-1971), was a California journalist and editor who achieved notoriety in 1931 as the founder of the so-called "Disumbrationist School of..... More
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1936. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo; gold cloth, with titling and decorations stamped in blue on spine and front panel; blue topstain; dustjacket; 287pp, [2]. Topstain a bit unevenly applied, with some minor offset to pastedowns; Near Fine. Dustjacket is unclipped, lightly edge-rubbed, with one..... More
New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936. First, Limited Edition. Benet, always a "people's poet," was at his most socially engaged in this collection published at the height of the Great Depression. Includes his stridently anti-Fascist long poem "Litany for Dictatorships," and the powerful suite of Depression poems beginning with "Metropolitan..... More
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972. First Edition. Essays by Jerome L. Rodnitzky ("Popular Music as a Radical Influence"); John A. Garraty ("Radicalism in the Great Depression"), others. Introduction by Lyndon Baines Johnson. Octavo. Cloth boards; dustjacket; 114pp. Fine, unmarked copy in lightly edge-rubbed dustwrapper. More
New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1935. First Edition. Sanford's second novel (and the first using his nom de plume), set in Depression-era New York and dealing with a gang of ruthless game-poachers. Sanford went on to publish 24 books and several screenplays but, in the words of his bibliographer..... More
Harrisburg, PA: Telegraph Press, 1935. First Edition. Long's posthumously-published political fantasy, imagining a world in which he has won the 1936 Presidential race and begun instituting his populist reform agenda. Long-form fiction proved a perhaps over-elaborate vehicle for campaign propaganda (especially given Long's target audience), and My First Days in..... More
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, [1937]. First Edition. Octavo (22cm.); publisher's red gilt-lettered cloth; 342pp.; large folding chart. Corners gently bumped, small dent to upper cover margin, spine gilt quite dulled, contemporary pressure stamps of the Dayton Daily News to first three leaves, else Very Good and sound. More
Jersey City: George L. Record Memorial Association, [1936]. First Edition. Posthumously published "program of political action to end the present and prevent future depressions, provide permanent employment for all, increase the production of wealth and secure its more equitable distribution" (title page). Record (1859-1933), was an active, though somewhat unsuccessful..... More
![How to Abolish Poverty [Inscribed by the Association]. George L. RECORD, intro Amos Pinchot,...](/pictures/medium/25359.jpg?v=1529353455)
Jersey City: George L. Record Memorial Association, [1936]. First Edition. Posthumously published "program of political action to end the present and prevent future depressions, provide permanent employment for all, increase the production of wealth and secure its more equitable distribution" (title page). Record (1859-1933), was an active, though somewhat unsuccessful..... More
New York: Equinox Cooperative Press, 1937. First Edition. Octavo (22cm). Red cloth boards; dustjacket; yellow top-stain; 362pp. Light wear to jacket extremities; text block clean, tight and unmarked; a solid, VG or better copy. Reis (1895-1978) a corporate accountant, best known for assembling one of the pre-eminent art collections of..... More
![The Story of Roosevelt and Garner As It Affects the Negro [cover title]. REPUBLICAN NATIONAL...](/pictures/medium/45886.jpg?v=1569881110)
N.p. Republican National Committee, n.d., but 1932. First Edition. Attack on Democratic presidential hopeful Franklin D. Roosevelt and his running mate John Nance Garner, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Congress. The pamphlet, targeting African-American voters, would have been issued during the 1932 presidential election, and delineates the ways..... More
New York: Coward-McCann, [1933]. First Edition. Perhaps the most staunchly proletarian and anti-capitalist of Rice’s many plays. Though it was produced at the height of Rice’s career, "We, The People received lukewarm reviews, its agit-prop style holding little appeal for mainstream playgoers and the price of admission being too dear..... More
Chicago: M'F'D by Scene-of-Action Corp. ca. 1937. Lithographic window decal (25.25x30.5cm); illustration printed within patriotic red, white, and blue border, showing an American flag blowing in the wind, with inset circular colored photographic portrait of FDR. Right-hand edge trimmed close, else Fine. More
New York: Brentano's, Inc., 1932. First Edition. Depression-era appeal to the independent voter, co-authored by Rowntree, a political student and writer, and McCree, a journalist. "This timely book reveals to the average citizen how he has been exploited by the professional politician and how he can utilize the power he..... More
Babson Park, FL: Nidar Book Co., [1937]. First Edition. Proto-libertarian treatise by the Norwegian-born American politican. Rustgard began his career at the age of fifteen as a cabin boy aboard a ship, after which he immigrated to Minnesota, working as a farmhand before attending the University of Minnesota. From 1900..... More
