1930's Farm Life

Despite the flushed predictions of prosperity that had lured new settlers to the plains, the reality was more difficult. The farmers claimed that they did not have enough land, money, and transportation (Doc C). The farmers went into in a never ending cycle if they did not have a good harvest. As Booker Washington explains the farmers had no money so they had to borrow money from the banks which charged 12 to 30 percent interest. The interest the farmers were hit with was nearly impossible to repay so they had to mortgage everything and if the mortgage wasn’t paid the land was foreclosure which led the yeomen to become tenant farmers (Doc B). With periods of drought growing good crops was hard. Leading Economic Sectors shows how the farmers predicament of not being able to make a very

As a person that has grown most of my own food, without chemicals or engine powered equipment, for the last 15 years and lesser so for many more years I can relate to some degree what it may have been like for a farmer in the 1800’s (I even live in a house built in 1850).

The rural depression was a primary component in the Great Depression, as bank advances turned sour, credit became scarce, and banks across the nation shut down. All through the 1930s, more than a million acres of land were influenced in the Dust Bowl, a large number of agriculturists lost their jobs and property, and mass relocation patterns started to arise as ranchers left rustic America looking for work in urban areas. This relocation, or migration, added to Great Depression unemployment hardships, stressed alleviation and advantages programs, and made in many vast American urban areas (The Great Depression Causes).

Farmers did well after the Civil War and into the 1880s with plentiful rainfall and easy credit from banks. In the 1890s, however, American farmers suffered from drought, poor harvests, restrictive tariff and fiscal policies, low commodity prices, and competition from abroad. A downward swing in the business cycle exacerbated their plight, and many farmers in the Plains filed for

When most people hear the phrase “The Great Depression” they only associate it the crash of the stock market and the hard times that followed. Here in the Midwest, when we think of the Great Depression we also think of the Dust Bowl and the Dirty Thirties. The Great Depression was a very climactic end to a series of poor choices that greatly affected the entire United States.

The Great Depression was a period of economic turmoil in the United States that lasted from 1929 until the end of World War II. The Great Depression reflected the economic crisis of the Stock Market’s sudden crash despite America’s economic steadiness for nearly a decade during the Roaring Twenties. Two long term causes of the Great Depression were the poor management and infrastructure of the banks and the overall production of agriculture. Farms prior to the Great Depression over produced during World War I in order to feed European nations, armies, and that overall process costed money. Corn and wheat were popular at the time for mass production which led to an increase of farmers taking out loans in order to expand the land. As more crops

The Great Depression- The Great Depression was one of the worst times for the Western Industrialized World, when it came to its economy The depression originated in the U.S, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929. Cities were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. The Great Depression affected anybody that was indebted. Some countries affected; Canada, Germany, Great Britain. Not everyone was affected in the same way during the Great Depression. Many of the rich weren't affected at all but the poor couldn't do anything about it. Thousands of homeless families camped out on the Green Law in New York City, which was an empty reservoir during the Great Depression. During the 1930s, manufacturing employees earned about $17 per week. Doctors earned around $61

Farmers where Some of the main people who were affected by not only the great depression , but the dust bowl as well. Farmers were getting paid by AAA to reduce the land used to raise livestock and to produce products such as corn, wheat, tobacco, etc,these were just some of the problems that farmers suffered. Another reason why this event affected the farmers is because of the fact that farmers over farmed their land trying to get it to grow which made it worse and all these dried up crops turned to dust layering their houses so they had to abonden their lifes to head west. Companies paid farmers to plant clover and alfalpha instead of cotton and wheat to reduce not only land usage, but under priced products. Last but not least one of

During the 1930s, the United States faced various struggles such as The Great Depression- a time in which farmers suffered severely through many challenges. One of the challenges faced by farmers was the Dust Bowl tragedy; a dust storm affecting many farms throughout the midwest. The tragic Dust Bowl was a consequence due to lack of rainfall in the dry prairie lands, decreasing crop growth, and overproduction in farming causing more exposed land. It occurred because of advancements in farming technology, drought in the Great Plains, and the harvesting of grasslands.

Most people had lost their jobs; and so each and every farmer thought that when they moved to cities maybe life would have been easier. They sought help in the cities; however, life wasn’t much better as fourteen million people lived in crowded, unheated and unsanitary tenements. And the banks also had went bankrupt in that they couldn’t borrow anyone money as stated by document 2.

The 1930s were seasons of extensive hardship on the Great Plains. Settlers managed with the Great Depression, as well as with years of droughts that dove an already suffering society into an attack of tireless dust storms that lasted for months. The Dust bowl conveyed an enormous agrarian and monetary hit to the Great Plains and destroyed what was left of the United States Economy during the Great Depression. It continued for a decade, 1930 to 1939, and wrecked ranches and lives all over Texas, Oklahoma panhandles, Colorado, parts of New Mexico, Canada, and Kansas. Monstrous dust storms wrecked pretty much everything from harvests, overwhelming ranches, in such a way it crushed the income and careers of thousands of farmers.

Arguing that the majority of farmers during the Great Depression benefitted from the government policies produced through President Roosevelt’s New Deal is an inaccurate claim. While history textbooks highlight the improvement of finances for people in rural areas in the United States of America, the personal experiences of family farmers contradict those textbooks. Writers of textbooks about American history should consider looking further into the delicate topic of how the Great Depression effected common farm families. In the West, farmers endured the Dust Bowl. In the North, people in rural areas competed to make a profit. Although statistics show the most economic damage of the Great Depression beginning at the end of 1929, small farm families refer to the effects of the Depression dating back as early as 1925 since government policies mostly benefitted large farm industries as small farms were forced to foreclose.

In the South, rural workers and share croppers also migrated North by trains with plans to work in auto plants around Detroit, Michigan. Farmers had been experiencing harsh market conditions for their crops and goods since the end of World War I due to the lack of necessity and demand but because of this, their crops were rotting away in the fields, and there was nothing they could do about it. Family farms that had been mortgaged during the 1920's to provide money to get through until better times were now being foreclosed. Although America as a whole was industrializing, one quarter of

Growing up on a small family wheat farm in southwestern Oklahoma, I have experienced the harsh conditions of farming firsthand. The job that used to employ the largest amount of people in the United States has lost the support and the respect of the American people. The Jeffersonian Ideal of a nation of farmers has been tossed aside to be replaced by a nation of white-collar workers. The family farm is under attack and it is not being protected. The family farm can help the United States economically by creating jobs in a time when many cannot afford the food in the stores. The family farm can help prevent the degradation of the environment by creating a mutually beneficial relationship between the people producing the food and nature. The family farm is the answer to many of the tough questions facing the United States today, but these small farms are going bankrupt all too often. The government’s policy on farming is the largest factor in what farms succeed, but simple economics, large corporations, and society as a whole influence the decline in family farms; small changes in these areas will help break up the huge corporate farms, keeping the small family farm afloat.

Total unemployment rose from just over three percent in 1929 to just over twenty five percent in 1933, and did not increase back up to just over seventeen percent in 1939. By 1933 wages had fallen in every industry, with construction being affected the worst, where wages had dropped by half. Wages in 1933 were twenty five percent lower than in 1929. These decreases in wages caused decreases in purchasing across the board. Durable and nondurable sales alike decreased. Nondurable goods fell by forty one percent, where durable goods suffered the most and declined by sixty two percent. In the midst of the depression farmers also had a difficult time where usually they would have been able to survive. Unfortunately, the Great Plains were hit hard with both a drought and dust storms. The dust storms destroyed everything in their paths, leaving farmers without their crops. Small farmers were hit the hardest. Even before the dust storms hit, the invention of the tractor drastically cut the need for manpower on farms. The small farms were usually already in debt, borrowing money for seed and paying it back when their crops came in. When the dust storms damaged the crops, not only could the small farmer not feed himself or his family, he could not pay back his debt. Banks would foreclose on the farms and the farmer and his family would be both homeless and unemployed. Millions of people were out of work across the United States. Many people hit the road