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'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?': a Depression song as a source

In 1932, at the worst point of the Great Depression, a song about a forgotten working man became a hit across America. It's a brilliant way to practise source questions.

The song in brief

Written: 1932, with words by Yip Harburg and music by Jay Gorney.
Where it first appeared: Americana, a musical revue on Broadway in New York.
Who made it famous: recordings by Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallée, two of the biggest singers of the day, both released in 1932.
What it's about: a man who once had a job and a future. He helped build the railways and skyscrapers and fought in the First World War. Now he stands in a bread line asking strangers for a dime.

The song is still under copyright, so we don't print the words here, but you'll find many recordings online.

What the song tells us about the Depression

The shock of falling from success to poverty. The singer isn't lazy: he did everything that was asked of him. This matches what happened to millions of workers after 1929.
Bitterness about broken promises. The 1920s had promised that hard work would make everyone better off. The song asks where the reward went.
The anger of war veterans. The song came out in the same year as the Bonus Army, when thousands of veterans marched on Washington and were driven out by troops.
Everyday scenes of poverty, like bread lines and begging in the street.

How useful is it? Thinking about provenance

Use NOP to judge any source: the Nature (what kind of source it is), its Origin (who made it and when) and its Purpose (why it was made).

Nature: a popular song, written to entertain and to sell tickets and records. It uses emotion, not statistics.
Origin: professional New York songwriters, not an unemployed worker. But it was written in 1932, so they were describing what they could see around them.
Purpose: to move an audience. It may exaggerate for effect, and it shows one point of view.

The key point is that its popularity is evidence too. Huge numbers of people bought the records and heard it on the radio, which suggests it matched how many Americans felt in 1932. That makes it very useful for studying attitudes, even if it's less useful for facts and figures.

Model answer: "How useful is this song to a historian studying the Depression?"

The song is useful because it shows how many Americans felt about the Depression in 1932. It describes a man who built railways and fought in the war but now has to beg for a dime, which suggests people felt that loyal, hard-working Americans had been abandoned. This fits what I know: by 1932 millions were unemployed, and the Bonus Army of veterans was driven out of Washington that summer. The provenance limits it, because it was written by professional songwriters for a Broadway show, so it was designed to stir emotion and sell tickets rather than give a balanced view. However, the fact that versions by Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallée became hits suggests that many people recognised their own situation in it. Overall it is very useful for understanding attitudes to the Depression, but a historian would need other sources, such as unemployment figures, to measure how bad it really was.

Compare it with...

Advertisements from the 1920s, which show the boom and the promise of a better life.
Dorothea Lange's photograph Migrant Mother (1936), another emotional source made by a professional with a purpose.
Speeches by Hoover and Roosevelt, which show how politicians explained the crisis.

The Library of Congress has photographs and recordings from the Depression years that you can use for more practice. For the full story of these years, read Boom and bust: the USA, 1919-1941.

Updated 18 October 2026