Roving Bands of Historians...

Friedrich's 'The Wanderer Above the Mists'--This painting also works great in posts about finding yourself or moving to a new town. Try it.

Now is not the best time to be looking for a job. But things could always be worse. I had a history professor in college who specialized in the Great Depression (actually I believe he specialized in the writings of upper class post Civil War Southerners and their reaction to losing the war) but the point is he knew a lot about the Great Depression.

Among other things, he told us students that during the 30’s, “roving bands of unemployed historians” would travel from town to town in search of work. The thing is, there’s not much employment for wandering historians even in the best of times, so I’m a little confused about what these roving academics were searching for.

The Great Depression is an evocative era on its own, and we’ve all seen the dingy black and white photographs that capture the desperation. But nothing quite sells the idea of “things are terrible” more than a bunch of spectacled experts on Charlemagne or the Ming Dynasty moving in nomadic camps across the country in search of a place to ply their trade. It makes the skin crawl.

So even though things look bad right now, it is best to keep in mind those “roving bands of unemployed historians” and be grateful that these days unemployed historians are generally confined to their parent’s homes. Besides, it helps take the mind off my professor’s other favorite quote about the Great Depression, a line from William Butler Yeats' poem “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.” That’s no fun.