1. Effects of the Depression
How did urban and rural people survive during
the Great Depression?

2. Suffering at Home
Financial collapse causes people to lose their homes
People live in makeshift shelters (Hoover hotels) creating Shantytowns known as “Hoovervilles”

3. Soup Kitchens & Bread Lines
To eat people dug through garbage cans, charities started setting up soup kitchen & bread lines to feed people
Discuss the irony of this picture.

5. Racial Issues in 1930s
Af-Am unemployment is 50%, double what the rest of US is
1933: Due to racial competition over traditionally low paying jobs, greatest number of lynchings occur since Reconstruction
In the SW, White Americans compete with Hispanics for jobs, demand Hispanics be deported (13K deported, 200 lynched)
Scottsboro Boys
Nine black teens accused of rape, despite lack evidence all nine are found guilty – Supreme Court rules Alabama must retry case
7 of the 9 were found guilty again in re-trial

6. Effects on the American Family
Men: many abandoned their families, became “hoboes”
2. Women: had to take care of family, difficult to find jobs (unemployed men got preference over women)
3. Young Children: Poor diets/lack of health care = malnutrition & disease, schools are closed=uneducated future population
4. Teenagers: Many also “ride the rails” to travel the country, results in rampant crime by teens & against teens
Overall: 30% suicide rate, 3X more people in mental hospitals

7. The Dust Bowl
Rural America hit hard by the Depression & Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl occurred because of overused land and removal of native plants allowing the top soil to blow away during wind storms
“Migrant Mother”, by Dorothea Lange

9. Families can’t grow crops, unable to pay back debt to banks, 400k farms foreclosed upon (1929-1932)
Hundreds of thousands of families forced to migrate West
Migrants collectively known as “Okies” (derogatory) were discriminated against in jobs, housing, etc
VQ/Discuss: How does the Dust Bowl affect the people of the Great Plains?