During the Great Depression, many children lost key social supports. Municipalities went bankrupt and communities struggled to pay teachers and bus drivers. By 1934, almost 20,000 schools had closed. Parents faced many difficult choices including whether to send a child to school or put them to work to support the family. Radio broadcasts were growing in popularity, and people turned to this new source of entertainment for solace in hard times. When Chicago schools closed due to a polio epidemic, teachers broadcast their lessons on the radio—an early example of “distance learning.”

By 1935 in the mountains above the Shenandoah Valley, the State and Federal Governments were assembling land for a new national park, displacing more than 500 families. Squatters occupied some of the abandoned homes. In these mountain hollows of Virginia—beyond the reach of radio broadcasts—people found solace in their own music, drawing from the deep reservoir of traditional story-songs passed down by earlier generations.