“[A] masterful re-creation”

– The Miami Herald

“Provides an intimate glimpse into the afflicted heartland as Hickok crisscrossed the nation…An invaluable contribution to the scholarship of the era.”

– Booklist

"A moving and memorable account of the impact of the Great Depression."

– Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[A] gripping, painful account.”

– Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“Eminently readable and accessible.”

– Hudson Valley News

“[A] highly detailed, richly referenced portrait.”

– Concord Monitor

“A gem of narrative history. Michael Golay weaves together Lorena Hickok's beautifully observed field reports for Roosevelt public works czar, Harry Hopkins, with her moving personal letters to Eleanor Roosevelt, to give us a powerful account of the immense human tragedy of the Great Depression. He shines new light on the inventiveness of the Roosevelt relief efforts and provides an inspiring tale of a government that worked effectively to meet the needs of its people. This book should be assigned reading for the Obama White House and for all those in Congress who stand in the way of the president's efforts to lead us through our own challenging times.”

– Ellen Chesler, Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and author of Woman of Valor

“During Lorena Hickok’s harrowing journey among angry farmers, defeated miners, and frightened shop owners, a desperate old woman took her arm and whispered: ‘Don’t forget me, honey. Don’t forget me.’ No one who reads America 1933 will forget her or the rest of them. There may be no finer documentary account of the Great Depression—not only the material deprivation but the psychic costs.”

– James Tobin, author of Ernie Pyle’s War: American Eyewitness to World War II

“A vivid and event-filled snapshot of a pivotal year during some of the darkest days in U.S. history. With fluid and affecting prose, Golay looks at the role Eleanor Roosevelt and her intimate friend Lorena Hickok played in helping shape some of the most important aspects of FDR’s New Deal. America 1933 offers historical delights, outsized characters, wonderful vignettes, two seductive central characters, and a feeling that you are really seeing America as it was then. It is particularly resonant as the country once again tries to emerge from a profound economic crisis and its concomitant social unease.”

– Amy Wilentz, author of Farewell, Fred Voodoo

“In vivid detail, [Golay] conveys the suffering and poverty that overwhelmed Americans as they coped with the greatest economic crisis the nation had ever faced. . . . In his portrait of day-to-day life in the first year of FDR’s first term, Golay puts this sobering reality back at center stage, where it belongs.”

– The Washington Post

“Golay’s elegantly written book gives a granular account of [Eleanor Roosevelt’s] three-year mission, focusing on its most intense portion, from July 1933 to September 1934.”

– The Boston Globe