During the Great Depression, poverty swept across America like a storm destroying everything in its path. One such storm hit a small part of Texas where a man named Ira Yates ran a sheep ranch. Struggling to keep food on the table and pay his mortgage, Yates did all he could to make it. One day, a geologic crew from a large oil company visited. With Yates ' permission, they wanted to drill a well on his property, promising to share the profits if they found oil. The crew set up the equipment and began. Five hundred feet down, they came up dry. Seven hundred feet, nothing. One thousand feet and still no oil. Finally, at a little over eleven hundred feet, they discovered one of the richest oil reserves in Texas. The well sprayed oil high into
Government policies and their lack of intervention are also responsible for the strike of disaster. A report sent to Roosevelt by the Great Plains Drought Area Committee about the causes of the dust storm disasters concluded that the public homesteading act was greatly at fault (267). The homesteading policy and the stimulation of war time demands “led to over cropping and over grazing, and encouragement of a system of agriculture which could not be both permanent and prosperous “ (Egan, 267). War time demand was sought to drive up prices that stimulated record production. But by 1930 prices plummeted and led farmers to plow even more land in attempt to break even.
Due to the loss of their own capital in either the Stock Market Crash or bank closures, many businesses had to begin cutting back their workers' hours or wages and had to lay people off. As a result American citizens lost their jobs and money was scarce, families were starving, homes were being foreclosed on, and families lacked sufficient food and clothing due to the lack of goods. Unfortunately, during the Great Depression, the Great Plains also were hit hard with both a drought and terrible dust storms, creating what became known as the “Dust Bowl”, small farmers were hit especially as hard. While already in debt and struggling financially before the economic crisis farmers had to borrow money from banks for seeds and paid it back when their crops came in. When the dust storms damaged the crops, which meant farmers could not feed himself and his family, he also could not pay back his debt to the government and banks.
In the 1930’s, our economy took a major downturn when the stock market crashed on Black Tuesday in October of 1929, which affected many Americans in every aspect, including a rise in the unemployment rate. This resulted in farmers migrating from Oklahoma to California, as we see in The Grapes of Wrath when Tod Joad and his family take on this journey. Although the Great Depression lasted between 1929 and 1939, the people had hope in the restoration of the economy when Roosevelt came into office in 1933. He proposed the New Plan guaranteeing security in the economy. Unfortunately, it was not much help with the onset of the Dust Bowl during these tragic times.
This book sounds extremely good. I cannot imagine what these thirty-three men went through in those seventeen days. So many things happened in those days. This author sounds like he did as much as he could to portray how and what happened in the mine. There were so many stories he told that were very moving.
From our textbook we are able to learn the base information of the depression and migrant workers. The document provides a deeper insight with first hand views on the mistreatment of workers by wealthy landowners. First hand photographs allow a real view of how the impoverished migrant camps actually looked. The photos, along with Steinbeck's firsthand observations and genuine concern for the human suffering that was taking place allows for students to be further engaged into the topic. Our Texbook, Give Me Liberty, describes how the depression transformed American life.
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
On October 29th 1929, the United States of America fell into an all consuming state of fear. The crash of the stock market and the economic tribulations that rural United Statians were facing resulted in the Great Depression. No matter where one would he or she would encounter a plague of despair and people looking for the same jobs that no longer existed. People left their homes hungry for opportunities but would end up with starving for not only a small sum or money but a morsel of food as well.
“In the late 1930s, Tennesseans and many American continued to struggle against economic
When the Great Depression began in the 1930s the politicians and large business owners in the state of Colorado largely believed that the calamity could not affect them. Their hubris would soon be revealed as the economic crisis eventually reared its ugly head, as conditions unique to the state actually caused Colorado to be devastated. However, government aid programs that benefitted Western states more than the rest of the country, would greatly benefit Colorado; even though these efforts would be resisted by many of the states more well to do residents. , According to our textbook when the Great Depression began most Coloradans would have denied that it was having any effect on them, “Look at the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News,
Everyone in the stories about the great depression showed that Americans had went through different experiences. William Benton, Clifford Burke and Ben Issacs however had totally different experiences about the great depression crisis. William Benton was an example of the people who benefited through success in the great depression. Benton saw the need of the people and took full advantage of the situation. According to Benton ‘there is a potential to benefit, in all crises’.
Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States, took office during one of the most depressing times in American history. Before office, he was known for helping a variety of charities as the head of the American Relief Administration and Food Administration. However, during his presidency and the Great Depression, Hoover failed to come to the realization that the country needed more than just bread lines and charities to fix the situation. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief overview of Herbert Hoover’s life and presidency.
Herbert Hoover had been criticized by the people because of his lack of help to the homeless and failing in bringing the economy back on its feet (Hayes). Hoover had come up with the Presidents Organization for Unemployment Relief (POUR) that was supposed to encourage other people to share their food, nevertheless the amount of people needing food was greater than there were of people to be able to give food (Hayes). Hoover had declined to let the government help because he believed that it would go into debt, but had used public funds to pay for the food for farmer’ livestock yet not the population. After the people had started to believe that Herbert Hoover didn't want to help and had been rejected These people work their hardest to pull through the Great Depression with themselves and the people they love, however even when it had concluded the emotional effects and trauma from will impact their lives from then on. Many people had tried their best at living in the Great Depression.
In 1929, the U.S. was hit with the worst economic crisis in the history of the country, the Great Depression. The Great Depression left millions of people unemployed and cost millions their life's savings. The Depression lasted for ten long years for the American people. Since the Great Depression ended, people have studied it, trying to figure out what happened that started it all. The problem was, in fact, the poor economic habits of the people at the time, such as speculation, income maldistribution, and overproduction.
Both, urban and rural Americans suffered during the Great Depression, but not in the same way. Many urban Americans had to deal with living in large communities of homes made out of cardboard boxes due to homelessness and lack of food in the cites (Schultz, 2013). At the same time, rural Americans were losing their farms due to the crops as a result of the drought. The Great Depression was a perfect time for the Communist Party of the United States to thrive, as a large portion of Americans believed that Capitalism was the cause of the whole thing.
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.