Library JournalGolay (history, Phillips Exeter Academy; A Ruined Land: The End of the Civil War) writes of the 1933–34 cross-country trip undertaken by Lorena Hickok to evaluate and report to the new Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) on how the Great Depression was impacting ordinary families. Golay ably captures Hickok's roadwork and personality. She had been an Associated Press reporter; her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt (ER) helped her to create FERA reports that captured President Roosevelt's attention. Golay focuses here on the grinding poverty that Hickok witnessed. And her secondary theme, woven throughout the book, concerns the friendship between Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt. Hickok may be defined as needy, while ER was the sympathetic social worker who took everyone under her wing, including providing two cars for Hickok to use on her road trips.
