In 1926, during the Prohibition, Joe Coughlin defies his strict law-and-order upbringing by climbing a ladder of organized crime that takes him from Boston to Cuba where he encounters a dangerous cast of characters who are all fighting for their piece of the American dream. By 1926, Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent...

This videodisc explores the extraordinary story of what happens when a freedom-loving nation outlaws the sale of intoxicating liquor, and the disastrous unintended consequences that follow. The utterly relevant cautionary tale raises profound questions about the proper role of government and the limits of legislating morality. When the country goes dry in 1920, after a century of debate, millions of law-abiding Americans become lawbreakers overnight....

In 1932, a twelve-year-old girl who lost her sight in an accident keeps a diary, recorded by her twin sister, in which she describes life at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Recreates the character and atmosphere of this dramatic era in a collage of recollections by both well-known and obscure Americans.

During the Great Depression, Marshall, an African American boy, uses lessons learned in arithmetic class and guidance from his mother to figure out how many beans are in a jar in order to win her a new sewing machine in a contest.

Discusses the political, economic, and cultural life of the United States in the troubled 1930s, focusing on the Depression, the Dust Bowl phenomenon, formation of labor unions, the rise of organized crime, and the Golden Age of radio.

Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. In a single volume the author tells how America endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities. He demonstrates that the economic crisis of the 1930s was more than a reaction to the excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before the Crash, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated...

"Flappers, flag-pole sitting, and the Ford Model T--these are just a few of the things that instantly conjure up a unique era--the Roaring Twenties. It was the bees' knees, the cat's meow. If you're not familiar with 1920s slang, all the more reason to read this fascinating look at that wild, exciting decade. It began on the heels of one tragedy--the flu pandemic of 1918--and ended with another: the start of the Great Depression. But in between there...

The drought of 1931 brought financial and emotional ruin to thousands of families in the Southern Plains. Dust Bowl was America's worst ecological disaster.