Life was hard for children during the Great Depression: kids had to do without new clothes, shoes, or toys, and many couldn't attend school because they had to work. Even so, life still had its bright spots. Take a closer look at the lives of young Americans during this era.

Activism made Mrs. Roosevelt a beloved figure among poor teens and children, who between the Depression of 1933 wrote her thousands of letters describing their problems and requesting her help. Here are 200 of these extraordinary documents to open a window into the lives of the Depression's youngest victims. Illustrations.

To what degree is the course of human life prefigured by the childhood and adolescent years? John A. Clausen, long associated with the now famous Berkeley Longitudinal Studies, draws on sixty years of research from this, the largest long-term inquiry into human lives ever conducted, to answer this question. He demonstrates that "adolescent planful competence," a combination of self-confidence, dependability, and an investment in intellectual matters, has a significant and continuing influence on many aspects of our adult lives, even into old age. Over three hundred men and women born in the 1920s in California's Bay Area were studied intensively through their school years and periodically followed up since then by the Berkeley researchers. The study members lived through the Great Depression, several wars, and a sexual revolution. Although many developments in their lives could not have been foreseen, classifications made from data available for their adolescent years enabled Clausen a