A secret gift : how one man's kindness--and a trove of letters--revealed the hidden history of the Great Depression / Ted Gup.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gup, Ted, 1950-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Benevolence.

History.

Benefactors.

Canton (Ohio)--Biography.

Canton (Ohio).

Canton (Ohio)--Economic conditions--20th century.

Canton (Ohio)--History--20th century.

Stone, Samuel, 1887-1981.

Stone, Samuel.

Benefactors--Ohio--Canton--Biography.

Benevolence--Ohio--Canton--History--20th century.

Ohio--Canton.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

365 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Other Title:

How one man's kindness--and a trove of letters--revealed the hidden history of the Great Depression

Place of Publication:

New York : Penguin Press, 2010.

Summary:

The author's grandfather, Sam Stone, placed an ad in the Canton, OH, newspaper shortly before Christmas in 1933, offering cash gifts to seventy-five families in distress. Readers were asked to send letters describing their hardships to a benefactor calling himself Mr. B. Virdot. The author investigates a suitcase full of letters responding to these ads as he learns more about his grandfather's hidden past as well as the suffering and triumphs of strangers during the Great Depression. -- From publisher's description.

Contents:

A Christmas carol

In consideration of the white collar man

The bread of tomorrow

If I would acept charity

Families: the crisis that brought them closer

Families: the crisis that pulled them apart

An opportunity to help

A merry and joyful Christmas

True circumstances.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781594202704

1594202702

OCLC:

535490506