Communiqué

Inspired by Daniel James Brown’s critically acclaimed nonfiction book The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, The Boys of ’36 is the thrilling story of the American Olympic rowing team that triumphed against all odds in Nazi Germany.

In the summer of 1936, nine working class young men from the University of Washington took the rowing world and the nation by a storm when they captured the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Berlin. These sons of loggers, shipyard workers and farmers overcame tremendous hardships—psychological, physical and economic—to beat not only the Ivy League teams of the East Coast but also Adolf Hitler’s elite German rowers. Featuring interviews with Brown, historians and surviving children of the 1936 Washington team, The Boys of ’36 recounts their unexpected victory and the obstacles they overcame to achieve it, giving hope to a nation struggling to emerge from the depths of the Great Depression.