Splintered Memories of the Great Depression and the New Deal

Realms of Memory

The Great Depression was perhaps the closest the capitalist system in the United States has ever come to complete collapse. Equally unprecedented was Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal response which dramatically transformed the relationship between government, capitalism, and the American people. How was it possible that there was no national memorial to Franklin Roosevelt in Washington D.C. until 1997, over fifty years after FDR’s death? The conundrum of the absence of a shared American memory of FDR and the New Deal response to the Great Depression is the focus of University of Mississippi historian Darren E. Grem’s book project, Hard Times USA: The Great Depression and New Deal in American Memory.