Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 29

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scissors in their hands and men with their arms full of mill bobbins
pursued a frightened efficiency man through the mill yard and
through the main street of the town" (p. 134).
Dreiser, meanwhile, assumed the role of reporter as a means
of gathering evidence to support his pontifications on the
exploitation of American workers by big business. Like Wilson and
Anderson, Dreiser took to the highways to observe firsthand the
impact of the Depression on ordinary people. In "Present-Day Living
Conditions for Many," a chapter of Dreiser's 1931 book. Tragic
America, the writer recounted how he found "unbelievable misery"
during his visit to the strike-tom western Pennsylvania miners' zone.
For two weeks' work, miners received $14 to $24, yet had to pay $2 a
month for a shabby four-room house. The company store charged
inflated prices for goods, "which amounts were deducted from the
miner's pay before he received what was left, if any." The result was
that many miners remained in debt for years. Studying in detail the
miners' living conditions, Dreiser found them having to eat dandelion
weeds for food (Dreiser, 1931, p. 14).
Dreiser's investigation into the living conditions in the early
Thirties also turned to Passaic, New Jersey, which the writer
considered to be representative of most smaller industrial cities.
Dreiser described in stark detail the plight of the residents in this
mill town: eight to ten people living in one or two rooms; dark,
shabby, two-story flats "placed so close together that a driveway or
a garage was not to be thought of"; people living in quarters where
unpaid utilities have been turned off; and the underfed condition of
many unemployed people (pp. 15-16).
To underscore the human impact of the Depression, Dreiser
offered portraits of various Passaic residents. For example, he
discussed James Golden, a 50-year-old unemployed tinsmith, who
went into a bakery and asked for something to eat. As the proprietor
reached for a loaf of bread. Golden collapsed to the floor and died.
Dreiser concluded: "The Passaic police reported that they had, on
several occasions, given him (Golden) a bed in a cell at police
headquarters, but nothing more." Dreiser also told of Mrs. O. S., who
rented rooms in her house to bring in some money. Mrs. O. S. and her
unemployed husband slept in an attic room. Her able-bodied, 62year-old husband had been discharged without a pension from his
mill job of thirty-one years because of his age. Despite renting the