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The Great depression - the human cost - Alexandre,Henry & Martin

 

The Human Cost of the Great Depression

During the middle of the 20th century, after the end of WWI the economic status of the United States of America seemed to be highly increasing, this period was called the economic boom. The United States saw themselves becoming the first industrial world power, producing more than 46% of the industrial wealth on earth. However, this country was over-producing, this did not go without any consequences. On 24 October 1929, known as the black Thursday, occurred the Wall Street crash, which was basically a major financial crash, which led to the Great Depression. The Great Depression was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized world, causing fundamental changes in the economy. Although it originated in the USA, the Great Depression spread in almost every country of the world. Its social and cultural effects were staggering, especially in the United States.

One of the first consequence of the Great Depression was the unemployment. In 1929 there were 1550 unemployed people in the United States but only two years later 8020 workers were jobless and this number was still rising reaching 13 000 in 193. Big city’s like Chicago were very hit by unemployment, many men wandered around the streets with big signs reducing themselves to sorts of machines only good to work asking for jobs with a big sign showing their past experience. In Chicago, only half the workers of 1927 in the manufacturing sector were still here in 1933 which meant a very large part of the jobs were destroyed in a very short period of time (4 years). Smaller ethnic populations like African American’s or Mexican’s were very hurt by unemployment because of segregation, leading to more dismissals of these populations. Indeed these populations were the first ones to be fired in the beginning of the crisis because of their origins. But the countryside was even more impacted by the crisis because the farmers’ lands and jobs were destroyed by what is commonly known as the dust bowl which was a series of dust storms hitting the state of Oklahoma. These farmers were the most hardly hit by the depression. After many years of intense farming they were homeless and had lost their job. This led the majority to migrate to California with the dream to find land a bit like Lennie and George in the very famous book of Steinbeck “Of mice and men”. Due to this huge affluence of workers for the very few jobs that remained, the workers’ wages were cut, and decreased with the economy, a major part of the salaries were cut, workers only had one third of the wages they had before the depression. This lack of financial resources for the workers led to another consequence of the Great Depression: extreme poverty and very bad life conditions for a big majority of persons living during the great depression.

        During the Great Depression, many habitants of the United States of America had a poor quality of life due to many reasons. Firstly, the majority of the population was malnourished. In fact, we can see several children waiting to be served some soup. In the title, we learn that the soup is offered by a charity. This means that the children that we see in the image were probably hungry and in consequence malnourished. To support this point, a woman ’fed herself and her fourteen year old son on garbage.’ Normally, people don’t eat garbage unless they are starving, so this woman was desperate and certainly starving. Secondly, a lot of people didn’t have a correct accommodation and lived in self-made shelters. Indeed, according to the testimony of a witness, ‘By 1932 millions of Americans were living outside the normal rent-paying housing market.’ These people mostly lived in different Hoovervilles, which were places where people were living in self-made tents very close to each other. These areas are not quality housing for their inhabitants. All these bad conditions of life were due to unemployment and poverty. This disastrous lifestyle caused people to migrate to other areas that they thought would be better for business and for life conditions. However, a small minority of the population didn’t experience these horrible conditions. Effectively, ‘Many American dynastic families hold parties helped to escape the reality on the street’. These people who weren’t experiencing poverty or mediocre life conditions were of course the elite of the society. They had enough money to live comfortably; have a home and food. But also they were capable of  hosting parties. These gigangantic inequalities were due to the Great Depression and to the fact that these families were already wealthy before the Depression. Indeed, these inequalities were existent before the Great Depression and the Depression reinforced them.

Hooverville - Seattle

        One of the key features of this phase of economic disaster was what was called the Dust Bowl, which happened just after the beginning of the Great Depression. On one hand, severe damages were done to farms and fields all over the Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas plains by huge wind storms, they were commonly called the Dust Bowl. Livestock could not be fed anymore and was sold or left to die. Dust storms roiled through the Great Plains, creating huge, choking clouds that piled up in doorways and filtered into homes through closed windows. The damage done to the farming industry was a vast problem, people were faced with only the option to sell or to leave. On the other hand, these so-called ‘black blizzards’ also caused health damage, as a new illness called the ‘dust pneumonia’ appeared. The Dust Bowl left over 500 000 Americans homeless. Moreover, the working classes of the eastern states and what was called the Great Plains, were indebted, unemployed, and had so poor conditions of life they decided to migrate west to start a new life and flee the old one. Approximately 200,000 migrants moved to California, but it is estimated that 3 million had travelled to western states.

Migrants from Okhlaoma

        In conclusion, the Great Depression had a harsh social effect in terms of economy and life. Indeed, most of the habitants of the United States were suffering because they couldn’t get a job, housing or even sometimes in extreme cases, food. However, a minority were still capable of living properly. The inequalities between these two types of people were enormous and were highly increased due to the depression.

The Great depression - the human cost - Léopold

 

The Human Cost of the Great Depression

    The Economic boom of the 1920s, a period of economic prosperity, success and glamour in the United States, led to the Great Depression. Consequence of the country’s internal weaknesses, the 1929 financial crash lead to an economic crisis; the one to be agricultural as well as industrial. Starting in the 1930s and finishing in the 1940s, during which 5000 banks went bankrupt in only 3 years, the Great Depression caused a severe social crisis in the American society

To begin with, unemployment increased massively during the Great Depression. Indeed, only 3.2 % of the labour force was unemployed in 1929 compared to 16.3 % two years later, or 25.2 % in 1933, which corresponds to a 22% increase in 4 years. Moreover, many were those desperately looking for jobs, often wandering in the streets explaining their situation. Furthermore, those earning money faced a major decrease in their salaries, since wages dropped in a matter of a few years. Manufacturers earning 27.3 % dollars a week in 1929 earned 18.18 in 1932. In the same time-lapse, metal minors faced a 38.2 % decrease. Coal miners, worst of all, earned, in 1932, 55.1 of their 1929 salary.

Men looking for jobs during the Great Depression in the United States

    Consequence of massive unemployment and the strong decrease in the average earnings of the workers, the population faced a harsher life. Access to food became problematic, therefore some had to turn themselves to extreme solutions: “a hundred people or more coming to the dump each day (…) she picked up the meat”, describes the “New republic magazine”, from February 1933. Though eating from the rubbish surely was the unhealthiest solution, others had to rely on charities, which distributed food in soup kitchens, or make the choice of eating in cheap restaurants, where one dollar could buy 20 meals. Secondly, homelessness became common, as many had financial difficulties, albeit unable to pay the accommodation rent: “Homelessness followed quickly joblessness once the economy began to crumble in the early 1930s”, claims an article on the web. “Hooverville”, reference to the president Herbert Hoover, thought to be responsible of the crisis, were improvised logins and “shack towns”, spread by dozens in Washington State only. These despairing habitats, made of materials collected from the dumps, produced a great impact on life conditions. In order to avoid living in a “Hooverville”, renters transgressed the law and squatted, therefore “defying eviction”. Lucky were the ones who “squeezed in with relatives”, though the majority of them had to live in the streets, facing discomfort and danger.

    Finally, great disparities between social and ethnical classes emerged during the Great Depression. Indeed, concerning ethnical classes, white Americans were favoured over African Americans and migrants, meaning by this that an employer would fire them last. “African Americans and Mexicans were particularly hurt. By 1932, 40 to 50 percent of black workers in Chicago were unemployed”, depicts an extract from the Encyclopaedia of Chicago. In addition, Mexicans were encouraged to leave through diverse initiatives: “A free transportation offered from Chicago”, was one of them. Concerning the disparities on the social aspect, some classes were more impacted than others. For instance, farmers and ranchers suffered a succession of events that made their economic activities impossible. The after war overuse of the land, the over-production and “the harsh weather conditions that followed”, describes source 10, led to the creation of the Dust Bowl, eight years during which land in Central United States was unusable for any agricultural practices. Consequently, land parcels were sold for a bargain, “One farm (…) was mortgaged at $4,100 and sold at $49.50”, therefore farmers migrated to the west, especially in California, transcendental flux observable in source number 12, where a seemingly family is seen to travel on foot. In contrast with this global misery, American dynastic families led luxurious lives, and held parties “to escape the reality on the street and the grander the better”, as described in an extract from PBS 1930s high society.

Dustbowls, “black blizzards of dust”, in Central United States during the Great Depression

   In conclusion, the American Depression caused a global unemployment leading to a poorer quality of life in the United-States of America. Though the majority suffered from these 10 years, a small minority ignored the social crisis, enwidening the already existing disparities.

The Great depression - the human cost - Irène

 

USA, 1929

The Human Cost of the Great Depression

The 1930s in the United States were marked by an extensive period of economic crisis, with a lengthy economic, financial and social impact. The decline of industrial production and gross domestic product (GDP), as well as the 1929 deflation, were caused by factors such as the stock market crash, banking panics and decreased international lending and tariffs. This period lasted from 1929 to 1940 and it was called the age of Great Depression.

Account of the human cost of this economic turndown in the USA.

The Great Depression was unprecedented in the USA history. A major consequence of the economic crisis was mass unemployment, declining wages and precariousness of employment as well as social standing threatening a majority of working profiles.

        Indeed, between 1929 and 1933, the unemployment rate had increased drastically, evolving from 3,2 % to 25 % of the labour force, and touching more than 12 million people on a total population of 123 million. In addition, average weekly wages plummeted in the industrial sector, most notably by 33,6 % in the manufacturing industry between 1929 and 1932, reaching the meagre sum of 18 dollars per week by average worker. However, nor public school employees nor white-collars functionaries were spared by low salaries and postponed wages, as the educational and bureaucratic sectors were financially caught off-guard as well. It was not unusual that men set off to the streets with large placards including age, qualification and reference in desperate looking for labour.

        Secondly, farmers and landowners were another category severely hit during the Great Depression. Trying to resist to the crisis, initially they attempted to expand their production, often mortgaging their farms in order to pay for equipment and seed. A series of environmental disasters, a massive drought during 8 years, dust storms and finally the Dust Bowl cumulated with the overuse of land, thus resulting in degrading the soil. This was followed by farms’ bankruptcies at national level, many of them being sold at auctions at “rock-bottom” prices because unable to survive in the ever-decreasing commodity market. As a result, farmless migrants were forced onto the roads, in departure for instance to California, to be met with the hostile nickname “Okies” deriving from Oklahoma farmers.

Dust Bowl migrants on a highway

    The nation experienced a rocketing rate of poverty induced by the Great Depression: thus, the gross national product declined by 30 %. Once they lost their jobs and sources of revenue, people lost their properties or faced increasingly degraded housing conditions, as they became unable to pay rent or mortgages. Shacktowns and homeless encampment developed across the country, under the name of “Hoovervilles", in reference to the political opponents blaming President Hoover and his Republican Party for the economic bust and its disastrous social effects. For instance, in Seattle’s Hooverville, over 500 shacks were reported in 1934. Moreover, even obtaining daily food became very difficult. Frequent situations included sought after food in garbage dumps or begging for meals. Soup kitchens and breadlines held by charity organisations to provide poor families with some sort of nutrition. Cheap restauration, for instance establishments proposing 20 meals for 1 cent was very demanded, with unemployed workers waiting in extensive lines.

Segregation and contrasted social impact

       Meanwhile, not all the citizens were hit in the same way. We previously mentioned the inequalities in treatment of industrial workers compared to public school or white-collars employees. Furthermore, the economic hardships extended the segregation of racial minorities to formerly secure jobs: amongst all the US communities, African American workers were the hardest hit, with the highest unemployed rate. Followed by that of Mexican workers, this unemployment rate reached in 1933 40 to 50 percent of the labour force in Chicagoan area. Extreme poverty contrasted with the opulence exhibited by upper-class society in entertainments and expenses. The high discrepancies were notably visible through grand parties, the most glamorous of which costing more than 1 million dollars, held in lavish venues or hotels, such as the Waldorf-Astoria and the Ritz. For instance, despite the crisis, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel opened in 1931 at a cost corresponding to $600 million today. 

      Therefore, the Great Depression of the ‘30s was characterised by a decline in the industrial production, deflation and banking bankruptcies resulting in social consequences through unemployment, sharp increases in rates of poverty and homelessness, as well as the plummeting of living standard for popular classes. Unequal impact on the social categories must also be mentioned, together with an increasing segregation of racial minorities and a growing gap with the wealthy upper class.