The New Frugality (Time cover.)

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In the Great Depression, people lined up at soup kitchens, saved string, and gathered around the hearth.

Now, in our own “Great Recession,” Americans are clipping coupons, cancelling vacations, and also struggling to make ends meet.

These are indeed tough times. 57% of Americans now say the American Dream will be harder to achieve, according to a Time magazine poll and cover story. The magazine also found new attitudes about frugality, what we value, and what we expect – even after the economy recovers.

This Hour, On Point: the new American era of thrift.

You can join the conversation. What’s your story of thrift in an era of recession? How does it echo what this country has been through before? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Nancy Gibbs, editor-at-large at TIME Magazine, and a former professor of journalism at Princeton University. Her article, “The New Frugality,” is the cover story for this week’s issue of TIME Magazine. You can see the profiles of average people the magazine interviewed — from an organic gardener to a doggie day care owner — for the new issue.

Joining us from Berkeley, California is Martha Olney, professor of economics at University of California-Berkeley. She is author of “Buy Now, Pay Later: Advertising, Credit, and Consumer Durables in the 1920s” and co-author, with Paul Krugman and Robin Wells, of “Essentials of Economics.”

More links:

Some of the sound narratives used in today’s show come courtesy of Story Corps. You can listen to hundreds of other stories at the organization’s Web site.

The San Fransisco Chronicle recently spoke with people who lived through the Great Depression and posted some video of the interviews. Frugality and its many forms have become trendy, as The New York Times noted recently. And Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a long-time student of the Great Depression, spoke about the connection between then and now at a recent forum.

There were years in the depths of the Great Depression when masses of Americans lived in desperation for a meal, a pair of shoes, and most of all, a job.

And then, in a world of hobos and shantytowns, came the New Deal and the WPA — the Works Progress Administration. The federal government directly gave jobs — shovels, wheel barrows, sometimes pen and paper — to millions.

They dug ditches. They painted. They built Camp David and LaGuardia Airport and schools and parks in every state.

This hour, On Point: a new history remembers the radical experiment of the WPA.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Nick Taylor, author of “American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA.”

Barry Bluetsone, professor of political economy, director of the Center for Urban and Regional Policy, and dean of the School of Social Science, Urban Affairs, and Public Policy at Northeastern University.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly.