Darkness...Hurt...Pain...Suffering...Sickness... These things all come to mind when one thinks of a Squatters camp. People from all walks of life, gathered in this wretched place because they have nowhere else to go. The sun rises over the meadow to reveal temporary homes made from mud, cardboard, blankets, and anything else that the owners could find. Out of one establishment, a mud hill with cardboard walls and a blanket roof, steps a man. Jonathan Hillsdale is his name, and he has lived in this camp for a year, but in a situation this bad, must've felt like an eternity. As he pushes away the blanket, a small glimpse of his world can be seen. He had four daughters: Lucy, Susan, Mary, and April. Disease has spread quickly all throughout the camp, and the children, the most innocent and hopeful of them all, felt it the most. Jonathan Hillsdale's crying could be heard at night, tears dripping down his face. He had no job, no food, and it seemed every other week one less daughter. Nobody could do anything about it. These were hard times for everyone, and with conditions so poor, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Those who are more fortunate sleep on mattresses, or have a radio. There were very few of people that lucky. To be lucky is to survive, and in a time of such hardship many people were struggling to just do that.
There is one thing absolutely everyone here has in common: Nobody likes Hoover. Hoover did nothing to help the situation; He could only make everything worse. Luckily for the Hillsdale family and everyone else, a new president had been elected... Franklin D. Roosevelt. His issues were agreeable and so were his views on society. He said something and everyone instantly supported him. His life was filled with glam, and he was able to do things it seemed no other president was able to do; except get America out of the great Depression. He was not as bad as Hoover, an improvement by far, but he still did nothing to help the current situation/conditions of so many people. Rumors spread like wildfire about a new effect he was going to have on the economy, a new deal if you will, but no evidence of such plan had ever been found. Many people, just like Jonathan Hillsdale, thought they could
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s plan helped make the economy get stable through programs that he started, helping create more jobs for the unemployed. He passed bills that helped both the American people and its environment. For example, new roads and bridges were built. Another one of FDR’S efforts to get out of the depression was to enter WWII. Document 6 shows a cartoon of how much was produced for the war and shows Uncle Sam working, too. Overall, FDR’s decision to enter the war was the greatest impact on the Great Depression because they got out of it. Herbert Hoover was a terrible leader in many Americans’ views because they believed he did not do enough for the people and was more supportive toward big businesses. He gave money to the rich so that they would pass it down to the poor but instead the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Another downfall of Hoover was Hoovervilles. These were a collection of poor people without homes. The name was given as a disgrace to Hoover. In result, FDR was a more favored president during the Great Depression than Hoover.
Because of the Dust Bowl, many peoples’ lives in the midwest were drastically changed, and California experienced a surge of refugees looking for agricultural opportunities. Because of this, many families, just like the fictional character Merliah, were forced to take jobs that required hard labour and not much pay. Merliah, a girl of 10 years old, watched, stunned, as dark clouds rolled in, and the wind whistled, making trees bend at its will. It was only 2 in the afternoon, but anyone could’ve thought it was midnight. That afternoon, Merliah watched as her father corralled all the cattle into a ditch. He was going to shoot them. Merliah covered her eyes as she heard the gunshots echo into the distance. In the morning, she put on a dust mask and jogged to get to school, afraid she would become stuck in a dust storm. Although this was Merliah’s life, everyone around her was experiencing the same things. Dust, storms, poverty-- they were what were on everyone's’ mind.
Because of the plague known as the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover is often seen as one of the worst presidents in American history. He enacted policies such as the Hawley-Smoot Tariff that flushed America deeper into the depression. Hoover didn't understand that to solve a crisis such as a depression, he needed to interact directly with the people by using programs such as social security and welfare. Instead, Hoover had the idea that if he were to let the depression run its course, it would eventually end. There are three things that can be used to define Hoover's presidency during the depression, his actions, his mentality toward fixing things, and the fact that he helped pave the way for the “New Deal”
Towards the end of the 1920’s the economy in America took a drastic turn. This was when Calvin Coolidge’s presidency had ended and changes in the government began to take place. “Just seven months after Herbert Hoover entered the White House, economic trouble mocked his campaign statement about being near ‘the final triumph over poverty.’ On October 24, 1929 panic swept the New York Stock Exchange as nearly 13 million shares changed hands” (Hamilton). The start to Hoover’s presidency was also the start of the Great Depression. His term consisted heavily on working on taking steps to bring America out of the drastic economic fall that they had just entered. He began taking action by launching public works programs, tax reductions, and the formation
"Give a man a fish, and he eats for one day, teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime." Hoover did not want Americans to become reliant on government aid and this optimism that Americans could overcome the greatest economic crisis is what later made him one of the most disliked presidents in history.
Herbert Hoover was known as the great humanitarian who can solve any problem he faced. Later on, it turns out to be false which ends up hurting not only America but the people
In the year of 1929 the stock market crashed and hurt many of the people in America as it continued through the rest of the 1930s and into the early 1940s. This left America in a whirlpool of poverty and despair. When the stock market crashed it led to The Great Depression. It led to being where one out of every four workers became unemployed no matter if they were skilled or not. People became homeless and were struggling to survive. They had to make new homes out of cardboard or whatever they could find, these were called “hoovervilles.” Most people didn’t have enough money to buy food to feed themselves or even their families. President Herbert Hoover did not seem to be going out of his way to help the country in any way. He was against most forms of government relief and he believed that the depression would come to an end on its own. Americans were very tired and frustrated with Hoover’s ways and so they elected a new president. They elected Franklin D. Roosevelt who
Tenement life was tough in New York City at the turn of the nineteenth century, as portrayed in the historical novel, City of Orphans. This portrayal depicted an immigrant family that was living hand to mouth in a tenement. This depiction is very accurate to the harsh reality that many families had to come to face. It was tough from the conditions, lifestyles, and space. Maks ' family was barely living off their earnings and was susceptible to disease and fraud. The immigrants were easy targets for poverty and sickness, and all too often fell through cracks in the floor. Their lives, as bad as they were, were not as bad as the ones they led in the countries they fled from to escape prosecution and to seek a better life.
When President Hoover entered office in 1929, stock market prices were at all time highs and the American economy prospered. Suddenly, in October of 1929, the stock market crashed and thousands of Americans lost their entire life savings. The crash sparked the most horrific and devastating economic crisis of all time. In the tedious years to follow, records suggest that stock prices fell “about 80% from their highs in the late 1920s” (Stock Market Crash). Soon after Black Tuesday, the United States economy crumbled to pieces. Many people became unemployed and homeless. Through the course of a decade, Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt tried and failed to bring an end to the Great Depression with their own domestic policies and political ideals. Before Hoover’s election, federal administrators praised his humanitarian spirit. When Hoover became president, he fell short of his glowing reputation and failed to recognize the severity of the situation America was facing. The nation felt out of touch with their commander-in-chief and in the presidential election of 1932, Hoover was squarely defeated by his popular Democratic opponent, Franklin Delano Roosevelt who promised a “New Deal” to the suffering American people. The Great Depression was a long and difficult time for many Americans ended only by the beginning of World War II. Two utterly different presidents guided America through the worst financial crisis ever seen with two different policies, two
After the stock market crash, known as Black Tuesday, in 1929, people panicked. As too much money was withdrawn from banks and they closed, people lost all their money. America, which was just in the “Roaring Twenties”, fell into the Great Depression. Suddenly, people were laid off their jobs, couldn’t buy things they had once not thought twice about, and struggled to afford food for their families. People lost their homes, and teenagers lived on the streets. Farmers were in debt, losing their farms, and had to deal with the Dust Bowl. The president at the time, Herbert Hoover, decided that the country would pull out of the Depression on their own. Since the citizens of America didn’t like that, on Election Day of 1933, Hoover wasn’t re-elected.
The year was 1929. America goes through the biggest national crisis since the American Civil War. They called it the Great Depression. The Stock Market was going down, unemployment was going up, and money was becoming scarce. The United States had to look up to the one person who could lead the country out of this national catastrophe, The President. At this time the man who had that title was none other than Herbert Hoover. Hoover, A republican, hoped that this was all a nightmare, he hoped that the Depression was a small fluke that would fix itself after a short period of time. After seeing that the Depression was getting worse had to
Hoover was the type of conservative that believed the economy would repair itself and the dead parts would fall. He refused to give direct federal relief to the people. in business affairs, Hoover kept America as a rugged individualist, capitalist society with little regulation. In fact, when the depression hit he bailed out the businesses rather than the American people. He established the Reconstructive Finance Corporation, which supplied corporate relief for corporations identified to be too big to fail. He was the first president that used his money made for being the president, for donations to charity. He was living the American Dream. Publicity of being a self-made man torched him when his strategies failed to relinquish the burden of the Great Depression (Hughes 1).
The country was going through an ongoing rough depression that the previous President Hoover left in the road for his processor, President Roosevelt. Although not only President Hoover decisions and approval of laws added to the great depression, but the
In the years when Hoover was president, he had done nothing in order to help society with the problems they are facing. When 1932 came, the people didn’t want Hoover to be president again. When FDR gave his reasons on what he would be doing to help the people in America, the people thought that he would make a change, so they elected him as president. The problem was that Hoover had done a bad job during his term and FDR now had to find ways in order to fix what Hoover had done. But it then got worse when the Great Depression hit and FDR now had to take more responsibility and take action. During FDR’s presidency, his responses by creating programs to make the economy stable from the Great Depression were effective, but also ineffective. The
The legacy that President Hoover passed to his successor was disastrous. The country experienced an unprecedented economic depression. However, in his speech during the presidential campaign in 1936, he expressed a deep concern that the New Deal is directed against the interests of ?poor Americans?[footnoteRef:2]. He also blamed the Roosevelt policy in violation of ?fundamental American ideals and liberties?[footnoteRef:3]. While Roosevelt was rebuilding America, Hoover attacked