| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The March of Spare Time: The Problem and Promise of Leisure in the Great Depression. By Susan Currell. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. 235 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-8122-3859-1.)

The problem of leisure was not new in the Great Depression. Idle hands had long been the devil's workshop, but social scientists and recreation professionals faced an increasing burden as leisure time expanded due to economic dislocation and unemployment. Susan Currell's The March of Spare Time ably captures the dual nature of "rational" recreation in the 1930s. Academics, artists, and New Dealers all considered the enforced leisure of the depression an opportunity to remake the recreational landscape while they recognized the perils of consumerism and unsupervised leisure activities. Recreation held the key to economic recovery, but it could likewise exacerbate personal and social problems if left unchecked.

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