Many of our ancestors kept diaries and journals. They wrote letters and sometimes biographies and autobiographies. These writings are a true example of the past meeting the present. We often forget things like why my grandmother always called the refrigerator an ice box and the sink a basin.
"Lottie Ogle's Log Cabin Ventures" (or how one got by and made a living during the Dirty Thirties) author unknown
"A Dirge in Depression Times" by Mary Jane Monroe Pray