SUGGESTED READING ★ A-11Denning, Michael. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the
Twentieth Century (1996). A comprehensive account of the rise of cultural
activity associated with the political left and the New Deal.
Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time (2006). A social history of the Dust Bowl
during the Depression, including the stories of victims and survivors.
Katznelson, Ira. Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (2013).
Examines the shaping of New Deal policy and especially the compromises
Roosevelt had to make to get measures through a Congress dominated by
segregationist members from the South.
Kessler- Harris, Alice. In Pursuit of Equity: Men, Women, and the Quest for Economic
Citizenship in 20 th- Century America (2001). Explores how assumptions
regarding the proper roles of men and women helped to shape New Deal
measures such as Social Security.
Kirby, Jack T. Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920–1960 (1987). Traces
the transformation of the South in these four decades, with emphasis on
how the New Deal affected the southern states.
Leuchtenberg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940
(1963). Still the standard one- volume account of Roosevelt’s first two terms
as president.
Naison, Mark. Communists in Harlem during the Depression (1983). Examines the
rise and decline of the Communist Party in a center of black life, and its
impact on the movement for racial justice.
Phillips, Sarah T. The Land, This Nation: Conservation, Rural America, and the
New Deal (2007). Examines New Deal policies regarding agricultural
development, rural conservation, and land use, and its attempt to modern-
ize and uplift rural life.
Sanchez, George. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity
in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (1995). A careful study of Mexican-
Americans in Los Angeles, including their participation in the social unrest
of the 1930s and the movement for deporting them during that decade.
Smith, Jason B. Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public
Works (2006). Places the great construction projects of the 1930s at the
center of New Deal economic policy.
Sullivan, Patricia. Days of Hope: Race and Democracy in the New Deal Era (1996).
Analyzes how the New Deal inspired the emergence of a biracial move-
ment for civil rights in the South.
Williams, Mason B. City of Ambition: FDR, La Guardia, and the Making of Modern
New York (2014). An illuminating study of the most prominent “little New
Deal” and its long- term results.
Zieger, Robert H. The CIO, 1935–1955 (1995). A comprehensive history of the
Congress of Industrial Organizations, the major labor group to emerge
during the New Deal.