The trials and tribulations of simply living during the Great Depression bonded the country together. After a decade of partying and overall leasure the nation got hit with one of the worst depressions yet. In 1929 the stock market crashed, sending many families away from their homes to try and look for work since they had no money. The Great Depression changed the country as a whole, everyday life turned into finding ways to get by and sharing what you can with your community. During that time simply age could be a liability, and living in a rural or an urban area could be the difference between how people ate and how they lived. The normal life for people changed severely after the stock market crashed, people were used to spending their …show more content…
Women's radio would teach women how to stretch the little food they had by popularizing one pot meals such as chili or macaroni and cheese. Churches helped a lot also by organizing community potlucks where families would bring what they could, so they could get a cheap, fairly balanced meal. Soup kitchens were also normally run by churches and were where people would go stand in line to get soup and bread normally for free. Soup was the normal option for free food, because if they ran out adding water was a simple fix. A way communities would make their own food was thrift gardens. Thrift gardens would be accessible to anyone who contributed to the garden by planting different crops. Through 1931 to 1932 Detriots thrift garden fed over 20,000 people, so it once again depended on industry, location and luck with these things, …show more content…
Living in the country during the depression meant that going hungry wasn’t really a worry since they could grow their own food. The main worry for them was not being able to pay bills, because their crops were not worth the amount they used to be. During the winter months some would resort to burning corn instead of wood because the cost was cheaper. Farmers joined together to create a strike where they would refuse to give any dairy products in hopes the prices would go up, they didn’t, (“the Great” 1). Living in the city was more about how to get food, since there were little places to get it. Since there was no way to farm, people would make the food they got last through recipes like mock apple pie where they used crackers instead of apples, (“The Great” 1). Hoovervilles were towns normally built around soup kitchens, the shacks people lived in were made of anything people could find, like cardboard or wood scraps. Another term used was hoover leather, which was when people would patch their shoes with cardboard. Kids would go to school, but would normally drop out around sixteen or seventeen to get jobs and help pay bills, (2). Many teenagers would leave home and become traveling hobos, because they felt like a burden to their families, (Konkel 4). Nomatter where people were they had similar
The problem was that many people that bought stock bought their shares on a type of credit in which they paid part of the amount required and planned on paying the rest after they sold their share. When the stock market crashed, shares were worth nothing and the investors could not afford to pay the remaining balance of the original purchase price. Moreover it was common for people to borrow money from banks to buy stock so it became a problem for the banks when the population could not pay back their
The Great Depression was devastating to many people. From 1929 - 1939 life was a struggle. This all began when the stock market crashed in 1929 causing a great effect on people. Most stopped using banks and no longer trusted them. Jobs were scarce and people looking for them were plentiful.
During the Great Depression, people and families were struggling to get by. Unemployment was at an all time high and poverty struck many Americans. Martha Gellhorn traveled to North Carolina and documented the effect the Great Depression was having on families. She wrote, “it seems like people were degenerating before your eyes” and “ The price of food has risen, it’s getting cold and they have no clothes”(Gellhorn 166). The American people needed help and the New Deal was like a helping hand guiding them back on track.
They had to start selling items to make enough change to buy food each day. The great depression wasn’t so great after all. People lost their properties, clothing, and couldn’t afford basic essentials. People started to rely on the government giving them money but at some point everyone was on their own and it was truly a disaster.
Hoover said that we could get through this with hard work. People in both urban and rural lost their jobs, had no house, and had no money. Since the people didn’t have homes they decided to build shanty towns. These communities became called Hooverville’s named after the one and only Herbert hoover. Hooverville homes were made out of cardboard, tar paper, glass, lumber, tin or they would use whatever they could find.
When these stocks crashed banks were left without money and many had to close down. People lined outside of banks for hours to try and get their savings money out. This was impossible since banks did not have enough money. Millions of people lost their savings and were unable to get the money they needed to support their families. This also led to a big rise in unemployment.
During the Depression, men were the primary provider for their families. Men had difficulty dealing with unemployment; they would be looking for jobs daily, weekly, and monthly. The pressure of not finding a job to provide for their families caused men to leave their homes. They would wander the country by hitchhiking rides.
During the Great Depression, millions of people lost jobs, and families struggled to find financial footholds. It lasted for ten years, leaving very strong memories of dramatically dark times. Throughout those years, people found new ways to cope with the struggles, and interestingly enough, new emotions and belief in the ideals of America. Everybody learned the importance of being resourceful, while also keeping hope for the future and growing more unified and patriotic as a country.
Since the author gave up food for saving money, he explains how he never felt the need for food, rather for money. People were so hopeless they did not believe they could eat or drink clean water because of how hard it was to pay for at the time. This shows how greatly the Great Depression affected
Numerous individuals lost their jobs, homes, and, most significantly, their life savings, forcing them to live in Hoovervilles, or poor-built shanty towns named after Herbert Hoover since many believed
In the 1930’s the nation faced an event that would change their livelihood drastically. The great depression Is responsible for leaving people desperate when it came to earning and saving money. It affected all aspects of their life including their attitude in a challenging, not ideal way. This forced them to take extreme measures just to stay afloat. Eventually, the government and newly elected president got involved to help in various ways.
The Great Depression was a devastating period in United States History, the economy collapsed, and a staggering 25% of the population was unemployed. During this time, there were large wage disparity gaps that were very prevalent, there was no middle class, you were either wealthy or you were poor. It was hard for family life to continue, parents had to take up two and three jobs to make sure their kids were staying safe, and well. Most of these jobs were odd-jobs, and were temporary with no sense of security. It was a struggle to find work, and no job was too demeaning for you to do, because you may not find work again.
The Great Depression was a period of an economic disaster that lasted from 1929 to 1939. The effects of the depression varied across the nation and had a significant impact on all the different classes of the society. The following investigation will explore the impacts of Great Depression on the daily lives of middle-class Americans. Middle-class Americans were severely affected by the Depression mostly because they stood in the most convenient place of the societal ladder, they were neither poor nor wealthy. So, when Depression struck, the middle-class almost disappeared from the ladder because the economic crisis was massive and affected their lifestyles drastically.
They were called Hooverville because during the time, President Herbert Hoover took no
The Great Depression was a time of little hope and small dreams. Much of what happened forced young children out of their world out of their world into the adult world. I’ve also had to step up into the vast realm of the adult world. During the Great Depression many kids had to step up and begin acting like adults.