Answer:
Americans have established a very strong connection between work and personal dignity, going so far as not to believe that one of these elements would exist without the other.
Explanation:
Rauchway, through his book "The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction", showed how the great depression was something complex and profound, that not only affected the economic quality of Americans, but also affected the emotional, the personality and the way Americans viewed themselves. For Rauchway, the Americans established a very strong relationship between work and personal dignity, and once they found themselves without work, they found themselves without dignity, failed and very unmotivated. This thought was worked on for years and it took a strong political and social work to defeat it.
