A secret gift : how one man's kindness--and a trove of letters--revealed the hidden history of the Great Depression Cover Image

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

Gup, Ted, 1950- (Author).

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.

Record details

ISBN: 014312000X
ISBN: 9780143120001 (pbk.)
Physical Description: 369 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 20 cm.
Edition: Updated edition.
Publisher: New York : Penguin Press, 2011.

Content descriptions

General Note:	Originally published: 2010. "Updated with a new postscript"--Cover.
Formatted Contents Note:	A Christmas carol -- In consideration of the white collar man -- The bread of tomorrow -- If I would accept 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.