Good Times by Russell Baker
Presented by asia
Introduction
US journalist, humorist and biographer Russell Baker was born on August 14, 1925 in Loudoun County, Virginia,USA.
His father died early on when he was 5, and his hard-working mother reared him and his sisters during the Great Depression.
He got scholarship into Johns Hopkins University, where he studied journalism in 1947.
He worked as a newspaper writer and wrote the witty and widely syndicated "Observer" column for the New York Times from 1962 to 1998.
Baker served as the host of the PBS program Masterpiece Theater.
He also worked in a paper-box factory.
Major works.
His books include” Our Next President: The Incredible Story of What Happened in the 1968 Elections…show more content… In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its pits, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed. Though the relief and reform measures put into place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped lessen the worst effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the economy would not fully turn around until after 1939, when World War II kicked American industry into high gear. In “ Good Time”,Baker’s suffering of early life reveals the true picture of depression era In 1932,.his mother ,after two years of futile job hunting, “found work patching grocers’smokes at ten dollar a week in A&P laundry in Bellville”. And Baker got a job at thirty dollar a week. “That was a depression pay.”When “The price of coffee was up to fifty cents a pound and milk to 20 cents a quarte.A pair of shoes cost…show more content… until 1963, a year after he became a columnist for the “Times”.
The first five chapters recount experiences from his childhood and youth that led to a career in journalism, including his work as a newspaper delivery boy and his stint as managing editor of the Johns Hopkins University campus newspaper.
The chapters narrate significant episodes or portray characters who exerted a strong influence on Baker’s career. . “Uncle Gene” is an affectionate portrait of his mother’s brother, who lived with the Baker family on Marydell Road in Baltimore following World War II.More persuasive influence was his mother. Baker frames the story with discussion of his mother's ambition for him. Constantly urging him, “make something of yourself”.
“Don’t be aquitter”.
There are two legends in this book, neither of them Mr. Baker. The first is the author's mother, Lucy Elizabeth. This good woman is goad, critic and inspiration to her son. She remains in his thoughts, blunt and sarcastic, exhorting him to work and work and