Suffering During the Depression How did urban and rural people get by in the Great Depression?

Shantytowns or “Hoovervilles” “Here were all these people living in old, rusted-out car bodies…There were people living in shacks made of orange crates. One family with a whole lot of kids were living together in a piano box… people were living in whatever they could junk together.” Areas where homeless people made a “permanent” home out of anything & everything

Soup Kitchens and Bread Lines, Provided by Charities (which struggle to keep up)

Racial Violence Against African Americans and Latinos Unemployment rates & wages are targeted by whites (b/c more competition for jobs). –Increase in lynching against African Americans. –Demand that Mexicans be deported

Depression in Rural Areas “Migrant Mother”, by Dorothea Lange

A Dust Bowl in the Midwest After years of drought and overuse of the land, top soil blew away = no crops!overuse Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado become the “Dust Bowl”. Families unable to pay back debt. to banks –Between : 400,000 farms foreclosed upon Hundreds of thousands of families forced to migrate West along Route 66 (HWY from Chicago, Il to Santa Monica, CA).Route 66 –Migrants collectively known as “Okies” (a derogatory term).

Effects on the American Family: Men “Men who have been sturdy and self-respecting workers can take unemployment without flinching for a few weeks, a few months, even if they have to see their families suffer; but it is different after a year…two years…three years.”-Frederick Lewis Allen -Men search for any kind of work -Some men become so discouraged they abandoned their families completely.

Hoboes As many as 300,000 “hoboes” ( transients) wandered the country: “…the riders of freight trains, the thumbers of rides on highways, the uprooted, unwanted male population of America” -Thomas Wolfe, novelist What is ironic about this picture?

Women Struggle to Survive - Women working are resented b/c thought they were taking mens’ jobs. -Others were too ashamed to face reality: “I’ve lived in cities for many months, broke, without help, too timid to get in bread lines. I’ve known many women to live like this until they simply faint in the street.” – Meridel Le Seuer

Children of the Great Depression -Poor diets and lack of health care = malnutrition & disease -Many schools are closed = lack of education, child labor -Teens are kicked out = become hoboes &/or jump freight trains to “travel the country”.

Social and Psychological Effects -From , suicide rate rose more than 30% -Three times as many people were admitted to state mental hospitals -Achieving financial stability became the main goal in life, “Ever since I was 12 years old there was one major goal in my life…and that was to never be poor again.”

What Would You Do To Feed Your Family? Suppose the year is 1930 and you are the head of your household. Write a letter to President Hoover in which you describe your family’s situation and how you are handling the crisis. Discuss the challenges created by the Great Depression and what you’ve learned as a result of enduring such hardships. Use quotes to guide you, if necessary. You’re writing the President, express your anger but don’t be rude!

“Two or three blocks along Times Square, you’d see these men, silent, shuffling along in a line. Getting this handout of coffee and doughnuts, dealt out from great trucks… I’d see that flat, opaque, expressionless look which spelled, for me, human disaster. Men… who had responsible positions. Who had lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost their families… They were destroyed men.” -- quoted in Hard Times