Everything Was Better in America: Print Culture in the Great Depression » (New Edition)

David Welky is an assistant professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas. He is the coeditor of Charles A. Lindbergh: The Power and Peril of Celebrity, 1927-1941 and The Steelers Reader.

American mass culture's conservative response to the Great Depression and the coming of World War II

Introduction "A Time Not to Rock the Boat" 1

Pt. 1 Newspapers

1 The Press Encounters the New Deal 17

2 Kidnapping America's Child 28

3 Olympic Feats of Americanism 45

4 The Gumps: America's Comic-Strip Family 67

Pt. 2 Magazines

5 How to Slant a Magazine 83

6 Life, the War, and Everything 96

7 Defining Womanhood in the Ladies' Home Journal 114

8 Patriot Number One, the Man of Steel 130

Pt. 3 Books

9 Mainstreaming the Book Industry 149

10 Finding Security in Best Sellers 160

11 Ellery Queen Restores Order 177

12 Gone With the Wind, but Not Forgotten 193

Conclusion: "Everything Was Better in America" 215

Notes 221

Index 251