Cinderella Man [antikvár]

Introduction As Jim Bniddock stepped out into the bright lights, the crowd became silent. The ring seemed so far away. Between him and it were thousands of people—-Jim's people. He knew the looks on their faces—people who saw no chance of a future. Some had spent their last dollar to he here, but tonight they all held their heads high. Their eyes folloived him with the wild hope that the story of the Cinderella Man would have a happy ending. The story of heavyweight boxer James J. Braddock—the "Cinderella Man"—is a true one. It begins in New York City in the late 1920s. The 1920s had seen good times in the United States. The rest of the world watched as taller and taller buildings were built in cities like New York. More and more Americans were buying Henry Ford's cars, and Hollywood was making movies that were seen around the world. In the country's big cities, it was a time of new fashions, new machines, and exciting new music. President Herbert Hoover thought that the good times would never end, but he was wrong. The country was producing more than it needed, and many historians believe that this was the cause of the problem. There were still many poor people in the United States—almost half the population—and these people couldn't afford to buy new things. At the same time, the country's rich people couldn't continue to buy things they already owned. The end came suddenly, in October 1929, when the whole system crashed. The economy failed, banks closed, fimilies around the country lost their money, and millions of people lost their jobs and then homes. In 1932, the country voted for a popular new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who worked hard to solve the country's problems. There were no quick answers, though—in