Book 2: Old Families, Member of the Chorus, High Life Summary and Analysis

Old Families deals with folks who came from money. These interviews vary between deeply inspiring stories of people finding their humanity through hardship to those who seem strangely aloof to the realities of 1930's America.

In the former category is the story of Diana Morgan, a self-acknowledged Southern belle who, after her family's decline, goes to work in a relief office in North Carolina. There she becomes comfortable dealing with the poor and understands the world more fully. She weeps as she recalls interviewing her former maid to put her on relief. From there, Morgan recalls going to work for the Rural Rehabilitation program in the New Deal. To this day, she cannot understand people who choose not to acknowledge the poverty around them.

In...