The Great Depression was well under way in West Virginia before the stock market crash of November 1929, and lasted until the coming of war in 1941. During this long decade the state faced some of the worst conditions in the country.

Jerry Thomas demonstrates that the state's leaders - like their counterparts elsewhere - often ignored or only grudgingly accepted the programs and initiatives of the federal government. Ironically, Republican governor William Conley believed that increases in both state and federal relief spending were imperative, while his Democratic successors, Guy Kump and Homer Holt, saw the New Deal as threatening state interests.

Thomas examines the efforts of various groups to organize against the disruptive aspects of the Depression, looking at the mixed results of New Deal policies in West Virginia within a national context. He provides comparative analysis of two models of local response to state and regional policy and discusses the impact of the New Deal and Depression on issues of family, gender, and race.