Akron Public Library

Struggling to uphold her faith and her family at the height of the Great Depression, Lanie dreams of becoming a writer, but her dreams are shattered when her father is diagnosed with cancer and a new crisis rocks the town Fairhope.

Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he's landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new Post Office. A wealthy art lover named John Long and his wife Eve have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch. Rumors and intrigue surround the couple: Eve left behind an itinerant life riding...

The story of a farm family's Depression-era journey from the Dustbowl of Oklahoma to the California migrant labor camps in search of a better life.

Since the Big Bubble popped in 1929, life in the United States hasn't been the same. Hotshot wizards will tell you nothing's really changed, but then again, hotshot wizards aren't looking for honest work in Enid, Oklahoma. No paying jobs at the mill, because zombies will work for nothing. The diner on Main Street is seeing hard times as well, because a lot fewer folks can afford to fly carpets in from miles away. Jack Spivey's just another down-and-out...

The poignant and captivating story of one young woman's journey across America during the Dust Bowl years. After a violent dust storm leaves their mother dead and the family farm in ruins, twelve-year-old Laurie Field and her younger brother, Buddy, believe their world has ended when their grieving, debt-ridden father brings them to live with their reprobate grandfather in the Oklahoma Panhandle, promising to send for them when he finds one of those...

Emma Trimpany is just seventeen when she assists at the harrowing birth of the Dionne quintuplets: five tiny miracles born to French farmers in hardscrabble Northern Ontario in 1934. Emma cares for them through their perilous first days, and when the government removes the babies from their francophone parents, making them wards of the British king, Emma signs on as their nurse. Over six thousand daily visitors come to ogle the identical "Quints"...

"Beatrice Carraway has dreams. Although she's aged out of the childhood pageant circuit, she's intent on carrying her talents all the way to the big screen--if only she can escape the poverty of West Dallas first. But as the Great Depression drags the working class further and further under, Beatrice struggles just to keep herself, her mother, and her younger sister afloat. After a string of failed auditions, she feels defeated. And then in walks...

The Great Depression brought hard times. Two young lovers' Claude and Myra' set out to get rich quick. Being good comes easy to some' but the trick to being bad is living to spend the loot. Along the back roads and byways of America' this star-crossed pair will become as famous as Bonnie and Clyde--if lawmen in three states and a Dallas road gang don't get them first. The rain stopped and the stock market crashed' but dreams can still come true ....

"The Golden Age of Hollywood is in the business of creating stars. Rosie Worth, now starlet Roxie Price, has found everything she's wanted in the glamour of the silver screen. With adoring fans and a studio-mogul husband, she's finally silenced the heartache of the past. Her future shines bright--until the fated Black Friday when it all comes crashing down. When Roxy loses everything, she finds herself disgraced and penniless. Her only hope is to...

"It's 1932, and twelve-year-old Cal Black and his pop have been riding the rails for a year after losing their farm in the Great Depression. Cal likes being a "knight of the road" with Pop, even if they're broke. But then Pop has to go to Washington, D.C.--and Cal can't go with him. So Pop tells Cal something he never knew before: He's a Creek Indian, which means Cal is, too. And Pop has decided to send Cal to Challagi Indian School, a government...