Making a Living, Making a Life - Russell Baker
Growing Up by Russell Baker
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Book Summary | Author Biography | Bibliography | Other links
Summary
With wit, irony and skillful dialog, Russell Baker tells the story of growing up during the Great Depression. His story centers on the struggles his family endured while holding onto the American Dream. Baker's indomitable mother is the force in his life which enables him to overcome, through hard work and luck, and to rise above his humble beginnings to go to college, marry, and begin a career in the newspaper business. Throughout the book, the struggles of ordinary people bring not only inspiration but insight into our own times. This excerpt from the "Working" theme pamphlet by Joseph Parisi sums the book with these words:
"Reflecting on this period of economic misery and social upheaval, other readers may make comparison with our own troubled present, and may find their own parallels in a determined mother or other strong and influential family figures who seem to guide our destinies and help us achieve our goals, with the Baker story in mind, the members of the discussion groups may also want to reconsider how ambitions--so recently distrusted--the traditional American Work Ethic, and the ideal of Success continue to affect our lives."
Biography of Russell Baker
Russell Baker was born in Loudoun County, Virginia in 1925. He chronicles his formative years during the Great Depression in Baltimore in his memoir, Growing Up, published in 1982. Baker attended Johns Hopkins University on the G. I. Bill, graduated, and began working as a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun in 1947. In 1954 he joined the New York Times in Washington and began writing political commentary in his column "Observer," which he continued for thirty-six years until December, 1998. Mr. Baker won the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary in 1979 and for Biography in 1983 for Growing Up.
Bibliography
- An American in Washington, 1961
- No Cause for Panic, 1964
- All Things Considered, 1965
- Our Next President, 1968
- Poor Russell's Almanac, 1972
- So This Is Depravity, 1980
- Growing Up, 1982
- The Rescue of Miss Vaskell, 1983
- The Norton Book of Light Verse (editor), 1986
- The Good Times, 1989
- There's a Country in My Cellar, 1990
- Russell Baker's Book of American Humor (editor), 1993
Web Sites
Read a lecture delivered by Russell Baker at Stanford University's John S. Knight lecture series for distinguished journalists. "Will the Media Be the End of Us?" knightfellows.stanford.edu/public/lectures/baker_bio.html
Read an article by John Corry, published at The American Spectator Online, February, 1999. "The Demise of Columnists: Reflections on the Retirement of Russell Baker," www.spectator.org/archives/99-02_corry.html
For information about the sequel to Growing Up, see a review of Baker's The Good Times written by Ward Just, May 28, 1989, and published on the New York Times web site. "Still Growing Up: A Reporter's Journey" www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/02/specials/just-baker.html ,
Visit the Michigan Historical Museum's web site which provides links to articles about the Depression. The Great Depression News www.sos.state.mi.us/history/museum/explore/museums/hismus/1900-75/depressn/labnews2.html