Book 1: God Bless' the Child Summary and Analysis

This Chapter deals with how people cobbled together a living in the thirties. It begins with the interview of Jane Yoder of Evanston, IL. She recalls the deprivation of this time, when Karo soup and a new sweater was an absurd luxury. Her son Tom finds it absurd that only forty years ago this was the case.

A recurring theme in this chapter is the moment people who were younger realized a major crisis had hit. Robin Langston recalls the lights going out in his house. Daisy Singer recalls family meetings and one of her favorite parks turning into a shantytown. Dynamite Garland and Phyllis Mortimer had to move.

Another theme of this chapter is the sudden inversion of social mores. For example, Robin Langston, a black man whose father owned a restaurant...