Great Depression
The Cleveland Library suffered financial cuts during the 1930s, even as public demand for library services soared. Wages were severely cut and funds for new books dried up. The financial situation got so bad that in 1932 a sign had to be placed in the new book section reading, “No New Books for Display this Week Because of Curtailed Funds. Have You Read These Older Titles?” Nonetheless, library patronage soared as unemployed and underemployed Clevelanders came to the library for a variety of purposes. Eastman told the Chicago Daily Tribune that “many of the unemployed patronizing the library call for reference works which will be of benefit to them in their vocation. They are also calling for books and magazines of general culture, finding that since they have a great deal of time and can now enjoy the books they never had time to read before." Eastman was forced to take extreme cost-cutting measures to keep the library open, aided by widespread public support of the library and appreciation of its services.
Read more about this topic: Linda Eastman
Famous quotes containing the word depression:
“Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the grand-daughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me. Slavery is sixty years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you. The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said “On the line!” The Reconstruction said “Go!” I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)