When the stock market crashed in 1929, it didn’t just erase fortunes–it erased certainty. Factories went dark. Payrolls vanished. The hum of American industry fell to silence, replaced by the hollow echo of empty stomachs.

By 1933, unemployment had soared to nearly fifteen million–more than one in five workers. Families who once counted on a paycheck now counted pennies, or borrowed bread from neighbors who were just as poor.

In city after city, long lines snaked around corners, men in threadbare coats clutching tin cups and children holding out chipped bowls. Hunger had no party, no region, no mercy.

And then came the dust.

As if economic ruin weren’t enough, the early 1930s brought a second catastrophe. The Great Plains–once called the nation’s breadbasket–became a wasteland. Years o

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