A scene from “Unfinished Business”

The Depression was the worst crisis in America since the Civil War. In Harlan County, Kentucky, where the coal industry had died, whole communities tried to survive on dandelions, and blackberries, and pokeweed. Farm prices collapsed, and farm families were driven off the land. In just one day, one quarter of the entire state of Mississippi went under the auctioneer’s hammer. Banks failed, and in several bankrupt cities, the animals in the zoo were shot and the meat distributed to the poor. Hundreds of boys and men thumbed their way to Florida to try out for the big leagues, hoping not for stardom but simply for a job. Half-starved and in rags, without money, gloves or shoes, most were turned away. Some who did get a tryout collapsed on the field from exhaustion and hunger.