Margaret Barrett: The Full Interview

Watch the full interview as Margaret (born in 1917) talks about bank closings, struggles in farming communities, her jobs and salary, going to school during the Depression, and the wonder of modern conveniences like electricity, indoor plumbing and the radio.

Watch in Segments: Margaret Barrett


The Great Depression Interview series, recorded in 2008, is made up of conversations with St. Louis-area residents who lived through the Great Depression. The interviews provide students with first-person accounts of life between 1929 and 1940. Teachers can get students talking about the videos with discussion questions (PDF) based on the interviews.

For additional Great Depression-related multimedia resources, from newsreels to oral histories, visit our audio and video collections.