Public Schools in Hard Times

“The appearance of Public Schools in Hard Times…marks the opening of a frontier in the historiography of American education… [It] is a brilliantly crafted work… An important and extremely useful introduction to education in the Great Depression.”—Jeffrey Mirel, Educational Studies

“A skillful, eloquent, and coherent picture, not only of how American education weathered the Great Depression, but of what public schools were like in the decades before the reforms of the postwar years.”—Alan Brinkley, Harvard Educational Review

“An admirable piece of work… A significant contribution not only to the history of education but also to that of the New Deal.”—Frank Freidel

“The Great Depression challenged all Americans. Public Schools in Hard Times brilliantly recreates those challenges—the experiences, the perplexity, and the diversity of responses. It helps us understand the educational issues of those years, and in so doing, it illuminates our present dilemmas. We need this book, and I am grateful for its appearance.”—Marvin Lazerson