The Gen X Files

Fantastic Site: News from 1930

There are many correlations between present day US and the 1930's. Although I don't want to get into the argument of recession vs. depression, the parallels between these times goes beyond just economic strife. According to the theories of Neil Howe and William Strauss, we are going through a generational shift that is similar to the one experienced in the 1930's (they call it a "The Fourth Turning" and wrote a book about it in 1997).

According to Strauss and Howe, we are entering a time that is analagous to Winter: a time of hardship and scarcity. Eventually we will arrive at "Spring" (they call it the "High"), probably between 2020 and 2025. For more explanation of their generational theories, see my "Start Here" section which has a few short tutorials.

I recently discovered a blog that provides a wonderful service: summaries of the news from the Wall Street Journal from 1930. Each day the author reads through the news from that day in history and summarizes it, along with weekly highlights. Some of them are eerily similar to today's headlines. Definitely worth a read:

News from 1930