Consumers, Utah, 1936. The area faced extreme hardship when the coal mines closed down during the depression. Dorothea Lange photograph, courtesy of Library of Congress.
The Economics of Ambivalence: Utah's Depression Experience BY WAYNE K. H I N T O N
D U R I N G THE 1976 BICENTENNIAL MILLIONS OF American
and British television viewers heard Alistair Cooke proclaim that during the depression of the 1930s the Mormons were the only farmers who steadily refused all help from the federal government. That persistent and inaccurate notion not only distorts reality but also denies the complexity of the economic dilemma created by the Great Depression. Many western and southern states had a traditional resentment Dr. Hinton is professor of history at Southern Utah State College, Cedar City.
