Book 5: Public Servant - The City, Evictions, Arrests and Other Running Sores Summary and Analysis

This chapter—focused, obviously, on public servants in the Depression—begins with an interview with the former chief of the Housing Assistance Administration, Elizabeth Wood. Wood explains how the idea of the housing project in the early years of the Depression did not take on a negative connotation. Public housing was nicer than private in most respects. Project dwellers took pride. This changes in 1949, when projects are purged of higher earners and integration begins. Integration incited many white families to flee. Wood says this was the beginning of welfare culture in America.

Chicago principal Elsa Ponselle recalls being a public school teacher in the thirties when the city runs out of money and they are paid in...