The Great Depression changed everyone’s lives forever, making them use the limited resources they had to survive in any way they could. Hoovervilles were places where homeless people went to find food and shelter. Homeless people made the hoovervilles so they could stay alive. They were made of tar, paper, glass, cardboard, lumber, tin, and any other materials the people could find (“Hoovervilles”). Homeless people couldn’t buy any materials so they had to use what they found to build their shanties. Hoovervilles held from a hundred to thousands of people so people were constantly making them larger. Although most people who took refuge in Hoovervilles didn’t have jobs, some took backbreaking jobs to earn a little money for food and materials. …show more content…
The worse the depression got, the more soup kitchens there were. “When soup kitchens first appeared, they were run by churches or private charities… Volunteers of America also was important in setting up soup kitchens all over America. By the mid-1930s, state and federal governments also were operating them” (“Depression-era Soup Kitchens”). Everyone who wasn’t harmed as badly by the Great Depression helped the ones who had in the form of soup kitchens as well as other charitable deeds. Soup kitchens helped the homeless survive the Great Depression without having to face the challenge of constant hunger. Along with soup kitchens, breadlines were another way for people to receive food and drink for free. Most of the time bread was served at soup kitchens as the food to the soups broth. The long lines that formed outside of the kitchen were called breadlines. Homeless and jobless people would stand in bread lines to get free food. It was very embarrassing for men to stand in bread lines, unable to provide for their families. There were so many people that churches and other programs began trying to feed them (“Bread Lines During the Great
Cinderella Man directed by Ron Howard tells the incredible true story of James J. Braddock a.k.a. the Cinderella Man. was to become one of the most surprising sports legends in history. By the early 1930s, the impoverished ex-prizefighter was seen as broken-down, beaten-up and out-of-luck just as much as the rest of the American during the Great Depression. His career appeared to be finished, he was unable to pay the bills, the only thing that mattered to him was his family and that was in danger, and he was even forced to go on Public Relief. But deep inside, Jim Braddock never lost his determination.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION 1929 was the start of the deepest and darkest time for the United States Stock Market and the people of the United States. The Market crash, the loss of American jobs and homes, lead to one of the hardest downfalls in American history. Along with billions of dollars lost due to bad stock trading, over extending on personal credit and the spending of money that had yet to be produced. The American people never stood a chance and in a matter of 10 days the lives of almost everyone changed. In 1928 Herbert Hoover was elected as president.
Living conditions also improved under FDR’s administration. Hoovervilles, communities of poor, homeless families in public areas, existed all over the country prior to FDR (Document 5). With government assistance to make loans and improve conditions of homes for low-income families, fewer people were evicted from their homes. Unemployment, at a peak of 12 million unemployed in 1933, greatly decreased throughout the 30’s, ending the decade with a low of 670,000 (Document 9). Overall, FDR worked very hard to solve all of the problems in America in such a manner that is understandable to the average
The people living through the Great Depression’s toughest challenge was finding a job to help provide for their families survive the harsh demands of the business world. Industrial companies were in decline and the stock market crashed. Their struggles only persisted and hope for new opportunities were
Hoover didn’t let the false ‘pointing of fingers’ get to him and constituted a thoughtful plan. President Hoover urged Americans to turn to their community and church resources such as the Salvation Army, Community Chest, and Red Cross to meet needs of the poor. Local and state authorities also began to take responsibility in assisting individuals. Above all, it was a decade of cultural uproar, in which American writers, artists, and intellectuals experimented with new, forms of literature, painting, theatre, music, and mass
According to Two Presidents and the great depression, “He then asked them to keep up production and not to lay off workers or cut wages. He asked neighbors to help one another and not rely on government aid. He thought that people would voluntarily act in a fundamentally altruistic way, and that this would help end the Depression.” This talks about how president Hoover tried to get the community too try and aid each other and that they could get out of the Great Depression in a more individual way. According to two presidents and the Great Depression, “On Saturday, the president reopened the banks that had been judged sound.
During the Great Depression a Midwestern phenomenon called the Dust Bowl affected many lives of newly settled Americans throughout the Great Plains region. Otherwise known as the “Dirty Thirties”, a storm of dry weather caused farmers and villagers to abandon their homes in hope to survive the deadly threat of the storm. The Dust Bowl was a big contributing factor to the Great Depression agriculturally, and economically. During the 1930’s America suffered extreme temperatures. A drought forming across all farm lands due to failure of successful crop rotation cause dust to form.
In 1929, America underwent an economic crisis. It was the longest and most severe depression of the industrialized western world. This was known as the Great Depression. The cause of this tragic event was partially caused by buying stock in credit. Banks handed out loans to people but when the stock market crashed, they couldn’t pay back the loan.
Imagine it's October 28, 1929, living a lavish lifestyle, owning a mansion, sailing on a 100 foot yacht every weekend, and having what seems like unlimited money that can be spent on anything at anytime. Then, all of a sudden, October 29, 1929 comes. The stock market crashes, banks are closing everywhere, and personal possessions are being foreclosed upon. The greatest economic downfall in the history of the United States has just began. This would become known as the Great Depression, which suited the time period between 1929 and 1941 perfectly.
The experience of the Great Depression in the Urban and the Rural American. The Urban American became distressed they were hungry and many were homeless. The rural Americans were pounded by a series of environment catastrophes that made the situation even worse and exposed that the government was powerless. The Urban Americans built makeshift towns outside of towns. They called the makeshifts Hooverville’s.
The wealth during the 1920s left Americans unprepared for the economic depression they would face in the 1930s. The Great Depression occurred because of overproduction by farmers and factories, consumption of goods decreased, uneven distribution of wealth, and overexpansion of credit. Hoover was president when the depression first began, and he maintained the government’s laissez-faire attitude in the economy. However, after the election of FDR in 1932, his many alphabet soup programs in his first one hundred days in office addressed the nation’s need for change.
The Great Depression caused homelessness for many people because before the event took place, the government was giving out money to everyone who needed it for a short period of time. People thought that, that was money just to spend on whatever they wanted, but in reality it was money to help them pay off their debt. So when it was time to do so, nobody, with the exception of a few, was able to pay back their debt, causing them to lose everything they had. This action is what led up to people becoming homeless. The number of homeless people/families was so high that the towns was also known as "Hooverville".
The experience that the majority of urban and rural Americans shared together during the depression was a flat out lack of income. The differences were very few, but in the cities, the depression was more prominently visible because of a higher percentage of the population (Schultz 2014). Besides the lack of income and employment, most Americans underwent periods of time being extremely hungry. In the cities, people spent hours waiting in breadlines and were losing their homes to only end up living on the streets in communities referred to as "Hoovervilles" nicknamed after the president (Schultz 2014). In the country, families suffered because of unusual droughts of the 1930 's that caused crops to fail miserably meant the already indebted farmers commonly lost their properties.
Many of Hoover’s policies favored big businesses and he believed that the growth of the economy depended on increasing capital given to big businesses would combat the depression, which is also known as the Trickle Down economics. If the government aided big businesses then their investments and success would “trickle-down” to the working class, this improving and expanding the economy (Doc 5). Many people criticized Hoover and his policies for not helping the needy. He refused to provide federal relief programs to help unemployed since he thought people would not be motivated to work if the government aided them (OI).As conditions worsened, makeshift homes popped up all over America and were nicknamed “Hoovervilles”, after Herbert Hoover. Hoover believed that that individual initiative and big businesses would solve the problems of the depression and that the economy would recover on its own (OI).
In the following days of October, an incredible misfortune occurred. This event would soon be known as “Black Tuesday”. This unfaithful day was the day where the stock market plummeted leading to a great crash in the economy. This led plenty of individuals to become homeless and live in a state of poverty. Many of these individuals began to create their own society's known as Hoovervilles.