RobertBuzzanco-TheStruggleForAmerica-NunnMcginty(2019)

FDR, New Deals, and the Limits of Power 185

children, depended on relief for food and shelter; 70 percent lived on incomes
of less than $1500 a year, below the poverty line; the GDP had risen to $73
billion, but that was still less than it had been in 1931 and far below the $103
billion of 1929. The Dow Jones average was between 100-110, far below its
1929 peak of 381. While millions of hogs were slaughtered and huge tracts
of farms plowed under there were people in Kentucky boiling and eating
dandelions and poor Texans were hunting and eating armadillos. Sadly, some
families resorted to eating “road kill” or even family pets just to survive. One
young girl wrote to the Roosevelts:

Barboursville,W. Va.

August, 23, [1934]

Dear President & Wife;

This is the first time I or Any of my people wrote Any president. And I am

here to ask you for $8.00 to get me a winter coat. This may seem very

strange for a girl 12 years old to do but my father is a poor honest working

Laundryman and he works on a percentage a week we have 10 in our fam-

FIGuRE 4-7 Pigs slaughtered as part of the hog reduction program, 1933