The Great Depression Begins Chapter 14 Section 1 – The Nation’s Sick Economy Section 2 – Hardship and Suffering During the Depression Section 3 – Hoover Struggles with the Depression

Ch. 14 Sec. 2 Objectives To describe how people struggled to survive during the Depression. To explain how the Depression affected men, women, and children. To analyze the effect the Dust Bowl had on farming and farm families.

Hardship and Suffering During the Depression Section 2 The Depression in the Cities Shantytowns (Hoovervilles) Soup Kitchens Bread Lines Digging in Garbage Foreclosures and Evictions Layoffs Wage Reductions Relief line waiting for commodities, San Antonio, Texas. March Photographer: Russell Lee. Unemployed workers in front of a shack with Christmas tree, East 12th Street, New York City. December Photographer: Russell Lee. Squatter's Camp, Route 70, Arkansas, October, Photographer: Ben Shahn Hooverville in New York

Hardship and Suffering During the Depression Section 2 The Depression in Rural Areas One advantage over city living is that farmers could grow their own food and so usually had something to eat Poor Prices for Farm Products Foreclosures Many farmers turned to tenant or migrant farming –Many families move west to California looking for farm jobs Lack of Rain –Dust Bowl

Okies and Arkies Head West Many families from Oklahoma and Arkansas move to California to work as Migrant Workers. They live in extreme poverty in squatter’s camps and make-shift shacks. Some live in their cars. In one of the largest pea camps in California. February, Photographer: Dorothea Lange. Squatter camp, California, November Photographer: Dorothea Lange. A migratory family living in a trailer in an open field. No sanitation, no water. Migratory white cotton pickers stopped by engine trouble alongside the road. Related family groups frequently travel like this, in pairs or in caravans of three or four.

Dust Bowl Days 5 State Area that suffered from extreme wind erosion. Top soil was blown as far as ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Check out

More Dust Bowl Pictures Dust storm approaching Elkhart, Kansas, May 1937 Liberal, Kansas, 14 April 1935Goodwell, Oklahoma, June 4,

Effects on the American Family In most instances it brought families together. –People stayed home and entertained themselves with board games and the radio Monopoly (1933) In some cases it had disastrous effects on the family structure –Men became discouraged with their joblessness and abandoned their families –Some became Hobos Unemployed men vying for jobs at the American Legion Employment Bureau in Los Angeles during the Great Depression. Part of the daily lineup outside the State Employment Service Office. Memphis, Tennessee. June Photographer: Dorothea Lange.

Hobos Hit the Road Man in hobo jungle killing turtle to make soup, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sept Photographer: John Vachon. Toward Los Angeles, California Photographer: Dorothea Lange. Perhaps 2.5 million people abandoned their homes in the South and the Great Plains during the Great Depression and went on the road. Listen to former Hobo tell about his

Effects of Depression on Women Many women canned their own food and made clothes for their families Some women had jobs outside the home but received less pay than men –Women became the targets of resentment if they had a job because some felt they were stealing it from a man that need to support their family Some viewed women as having it easier because they weren’t seen in breadlines, but in reality they hid a lot of their hardships because of shame. (See personal voice page 476) Young Oklahoma mother; age 18, penniless, stranded in Imperial Valley, California. (Circa March 1937) Farm Security Administration: "Suppertime" for the westward migration. (Circa 1936)

Dorothea Lange The photograph that has become known as "Migrant Mother" is one of a series of photographs that Dorothea Lange made in February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. Lange was concluding a month's trip photographing migratory farm labor around the state for what was then the Resettlement Administration. In 1960, Lange gave this account of the experience: I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960). Migrant Mother Watch Video:

Effects of Depression on Children Malnutrition –Poor diets led to health problems like rickets, a softening of bones in children potentially leading to fractures and deformity. Caused by Vitamin D deficiency. Lack of Health Care Shortened Schooling Families Destroyed –Families sometimes couldn’t support their children so they farmed them out to relatives or turned them over to the state. –Teens become “Hoover Tourists” and take to the road Very dangerous (See Page 476 for statistics)

Children During the Depression Farm Security Administration: Children of Oklahoma drought refugees near Bakersfield, California. (Circa June 1935) Children of rehabilitation clinic in Arkansas. (Circa 1935) Farm Security Administration: School in Alabama. (Circa 1935) Wife and children of a sharecropper in Washington County, Arkansas. (Circa 1935)

Social and Psychological Effects Suicide Rates rose 30% from 1928 to times as many people were admitted to State Mental Hospitals as in normal times People had to compromise and sacrifice –Adults stop going to the Doctor / Dentist –Youth gave up going to college –Some couples put off marriage and family Lifelong Habits –People scrimp and save / Habit of Thrift Hoard Throw nothing away Don’t waste food –Financial Security becomes extremely important Charitable Giving –People would help others less fortunate than themselves