Depression

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Depression

• Social Effects and Survival

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Social effects of the depression

• Most people believed that the depression would
  end quickly
• Hard times hit all levels of society
• Including professionals who thought their jobs
  were more secure than laborers
• Many people moved in with relatives
• Others were left homeless
• 15,000 in New York City
• Many homeless people came together and lived in
  hoovervilles
• Some drifted from place to place hitchhiking or
  riding the rails

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Hoovervilles
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Dust Bowl

• Farmers could not pay their mortgagees and lost
  their farms
• Dust Bowl was caused by dust storms sweeping
  through the plains
• 60 of Dust Bowl families lost their farms
• 300,000 left Kansas
• 440,000 left Oklahoma

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Impact on heath

• President Hoover claimed that no one had starved
  but many could not afford food
• Those who could not afford food got sick easier
• Children were hit the worst by long term affects

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Stress on families

• When people could not afford housing they would
  often move in with relatives in a crowded
  apartment
• Divorce rate dropped
• Too expensive for separate households

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Stress on Families

• Men were embarrassed and ashamed when they could
  not find jobs
• Women who had jobs were looked down upon
• Took a job from a man
• Many companies would not hire married women

8
Discrimination increases

• Competition for jobs led to higher discrimination
• Whites were now taking low paying jobs that were
  usually held by minorities
• Some white men believed that African Americans
  did not deserve jobs if white men did not have
  jobs
• 1932-56 of African-Americans were out of work

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Discrimination

• Government relief programs discriminated against
  African Americans
• Churches and organizations, National Urban
  League, gave private help

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Surviving the depression

• Not all of the depression was bad there were
  good things to come out of it too
• Pulling together
• Many people worked together to help each other
  survive the depression
• protest rent increases
• Give necessities to people who were struggling
• Ex one woman gave her husbands suit to a man who
  couldnt afford one
• Ex. One woman took in a family for dinner

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Pulling together

• Farmers held penny auctions
• If the farm went on foreclosure farmers would get
  together and bid low amounts so the farm went
  back to the original owner
• Helped stop foreclosures of farms

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• Teenagers left home because they had to or to
  find a better life
• 250,000 were riding the rails in 1930s
• Faced danger every day
• Being arrested
• Train related injuries
• Threat of being shot by angry farmers

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Political action

• Seeking political solutions
• Most people trusted the democratic process to get
  them out of the depression
• Some went for radical solutions
• Communist and socialist party had an increase in
  numbers
• There was a high point of cooperation between
  many different groups

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Humor

• People used humor to get them through the
  depression
• Hoover was often used as the butt of jokes
• Hoovervilles, Hoover blanket, Hoover flags
• Babe Ruth asked for a higher salary than Hoover
  because he said he had a better year than him
• People joked that you had to wait in line to find
  a window to jump out of

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Signs of Change

• 21st amendment- repealed prohibition
• Control of alcohol returned to the states, some
  still banned alcohol
• Got rid of organized crime
• End of the Era
• 1931- Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion
• Jan 1933- Calvin Coolidge died
• 1935- Babe Ruth retired
• Henry Ford became an enemy to laborers

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Signs of Change

• Empire State Building
• Symbol of hope
• 2,500 to 4,000 worked on it
• More than 4,000 people paid a 1 to take a trip
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