The full impact of the Great Depression occurred around the time William Friday began his teenage years, indelibly affecting his childhood in the same ways as this era changed all Americans. As William Link wrote in his biography of Friday, "the loss of jobs and ensuing hardship created what Friday described as a 'poverty of spirit'."

This 'poverty of spirit' meant hard times for townspeople and rural citizens alike. With the textile industry reaching a standstill, the Depression caused William Friday's family to face a precarious financial situation from their hometown in rural Dallas, NC.

As many young people did during these hard times, William Friday took up several jobs to contribute to his family's income. Instead of spending leisurely summers swimming at a local watering hole or taking a lengthy vacation, this eldest sibling spent his weekdays delivering newspapers and his weekends working in his father's Gastonia textile machine shop.

"I remember vividly my classmate sitting next to me would come to school, and the night before he had taken abandoned grocery bags, and he would tear the walls of them out, and they became his notepaper. That's how poor some of us were. You suddenly realize there is nobody else any better off than you are. It was a time full of enthusiasm because people felt, "Well, the country's going to go now, we are going to turn around." But Depression leaves a scar, it really does. You learn that you can do without. But the great thing about it is you come out of that, and I think our country in those days showed a resilience that had never been tested before. But as you can see, all through my life and out of that experience I've been very sensitive to people who were poor and did without. you don't like to see people suffer, you don't like to see people hungry. But when you do, you don't forget it, and that was a part of my life that led me straight into the work that I have been so glad to have the chance to do in literacy and poverty and health movements that have had a really deep meaning for me.''

-William Friday,
Biographical Conversations with William Friday

The Racial Divide - War Time - The Fight for Free Speech
The Great Depression - The Dawn of Public Television
Education: The New Look of Education