Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 12/Henry Brandon

Henry Brandon was a white, American, vagrant born during the beginning of the 20th century into one of the more prominent families in North Carolina. His father, Captain George Brandon, was a descendant of Confederate generals, who held plenty of power during the Civil War. These connections to an old bastion of the Confederacy in the south would earn him the help of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, or the UDC, helping him survive through one of the most tumultuous periods of American history, the Great Depression. He was interviewed by Anderson, George, and Massengill for the Federal Writers' Project in 1942.

Early Life and Education
Henry Brandon was born into a wealthy family during the beginning of the 1900s in Yanceyville, NC to Captain George Brandon, the grandson of a Confederate general. His wealth and connections earned him entrance into Harvard University’s law program, where he cultivated his passion for books and studying. He would go on to earn his degree from Harvard, with an intent to practice law back in North Carolina. However, after his time at Harvard, he yearned for experiences to study outside of the country, taking him to Paris, where he would study at the prestigious Sorbonne University.

The Great Depression
During his time abroad, he would leave his family’s properties and plantations in the hands of Jerry Hampton, a trusted friend who he tasked with handling the financials of his assets. Unbeknownst to most at the time, a massive recession was coming, and after the Stock Market crash in 1929, everyone was scrambling to hoard as much money as possible, and one of these people would be Jerry Hampton. With no means to keep his own family alive during the Great Depression, he would end up running Brandon's family plantation into the ground and stealing away what was left of Brandon’s family fortune. The rage Brandon felt drove him to murder Hampton but would wind up getting away with it, as the jury let him off easy due to his family’s name. However, this would mark the beginning of Brandon's downfall as his mental health was in poor condition and the grasp of alcoholism took hold. With no money, respect, or resistance to the addictiveness of alcohol, Brandon would spend the rest of his years clawing for welfare money from the government during the Great Depression, and keeping his alcohol habit going with the money from his confederate ancestry.

Role of the Confederacy during the Great Depression
Henry Brandon was born in a time and place where the confederacy was gone yet still very much alive in the minds of the people in North Carolina despite the Civil War’s conclusion more than half a century prior. Brandon profited greatly from his family’s legacy through the UDC, or the United Daughters of the Confederacy, as they continued to provide him with money after his murder trial for killing Jerry Hampton. Shockingly, even after his murder trial, Brandon was elected to the State Senate of North Carolina, not “because of any talent of his, but because he was his father’s son”. The Confederacy still had their hands in the pockets of the government on the local and state level in many of the states in the south, and Brandon was a perfect example of their reach in being able to manipulate the country despite losing the Civil War. However, as time passed, the UDC began to fade away and so did Brandon’s cash influx that would fuel his alcoholism, yet the influence of the confederacy in this time period definitely flew under the radar of most historians, and even today, the UDC remains a group focused on preserving the legacy of the Confederacy.

Political, Religious, Racial Beliefs
The circumstances that led to his entire family fortune being stolen from him caused a bitter sentiment for Brandon towards Christians, as the man who stole from him, Jerry Hampton, was a devout Christian, and after Brandon had murdered him and lost everything, he would continue to be shunned by Christians who he begged for money from. This resulted in his firm atheist beliefs, as he loathed the “God-fearing Christians who would try to get him to repent his heresies and become a child of God”. He was also extremely opposed to the idea of aristocrats, despite acknowledging that he was one himself. He explained that even when he was in France, the wealthy elites paid no attention to the struggles of the poor, and as he was now in the position of a poor man, he felt their pain. He also supported the use of birth control, with the reasoning that he wanted to prevent more children from entering the world so that they wouldn’t have to suffer the pain that society would bring them. He hated the idea of ‘posterity’ and how future generations had to carry the burden of their ancestors and their legacies. Brandon’s view on race relations was also different from his ancestors, as despite being a descendant of such major Confederate figures, he had no ill will towards African Americans. In fact, he stayed with a former slave named Ben for almost 15 years, as Ben had saved his life by taking him to the doctor after Brandon had gone on a drinking spree and nearly died from alcohol poisoning. Alcoholism was also another effect of the Depression, as the circumstances that forced many families into poverty often affected the men greatly, turning them towards alcohol to take their troubles away. Even from a focus group of men alive during the 1930s, 59% said that “economic problems caused their excessive drinking”.

Agricultural Industry during the Great Depression
Farmers during the Great Depression faced many difficulties as the booming economy of the 1920s incentivized them to keep prices low to compete. However, after the stock market crash in 1929, many workers faced mass unemployment, resulting in less money that could be spent on basic goods. This forced farmers to push their prices even lower, resulting in many farmers going bankrupt, losing their farms, and ending up homeless. This spurred anger in the minds of many farmers in the Midwest, especially in places like Iowa, where “a mob of angry farmers burst into a courtroom and pulled a judge from his bench”, demanding that he stop taking cases that would cost a family its farm. The real issue with agricultural production during the Great Depression was actually an issue of overproduction, as prior to the recession, farmers were being asked to produce an excess of food to help with the war effort during the 1910s, but this would eventually lead to massive shocks in demand, which would eventually lead to the lending system being overloaded with requests to pull their money after the crash in 1929. This would all eventually mean the downfall of the financial system at the time, as the banks wouldn’t have the money to give back to their customers, suggesting that the root of this crisis was the agricultural overproduction itself. Circumstances like these would lead to farms like Brandon's family farm going under, forcing people like Jerry Hampton, the man Brandon entrusted with his farm, to take measures to ensure that their families could survive by selling their farms back to the government and sustaining themselves off of those funds.