As a counterpart to research on the 1930s that has focused on liberal and radical writers calling for social revolution, Welky offers this study of how mainstream culture shaped and disseminated a message affirming conservative middle-class values and assuring its readers that holding to these values would get them through hard times. Through analysis of the era's most popular newspaper stories, magazines, and books, Welky examines how voices both outside and within the media debated the purposes of literature and the meaning of cultural literacy in a mass democracy.