ABSTRACT
THE thirties are often thought of as a revolutionary decade. But this was not so, at least not in the United States. Very few people, even Communists, believed that a revolution would actually come to America. Nor did one simply lose faith in the system; one lost faith in the idea of the future. What the depression did was to destroy the notion of progress, of orderly progression from youth to adulthood, from school to job or profession. It brought an air of uncertainty, restlessness, and drift.
