Hoovervilles Great Depression

Many consider the Great Depression a tragedy but few actually know the ways in which it actually affected the people who lived through it. One way it affected the people of the time is the hopelessness it brought. During the early 1920's many men returned from the "Great War" jaded and angry. The same effect was seen in most people during the depression. It was this hopelessness that spawned modernist literature and thought. Another way the depression affected the everyday man was the loss of homes. Many homes were foreclosed during the depression and this left many homeless. In fact the "Okies" were people left homeless after farm foreclosures. The last way the depression affected people was the broken homes it caused. The number of father's leaving their families rose dramatically during

Herbert Hoover, the president in office when the Great Depression hit the country, did very little to ameliorate the devastating situation. Hoover underestimated the seriousness of the crisis, misdiagnosed the causes of the problems, and clung to his beliefs in individual achievement and self-help. His corrective measures, aimed at inflation and the federal budget, were thus damaging themselves. Furthermore, he hesitated to mobilize government resources to aid Americans and instead appealed to private groups to lend a hand (Encarta). Thus Hoover’s administration did little to mitigate the impact of the Depression.

All the unemployment caused many to live in poverty. This poverty caused many to make makeshift houses. Some even made neighborhood. One of the worst cases of these were known as Hoovervilles. One of the most famous images of one of these hoovervilles was

A plundering devastation into the heart of America left thousands of American dreams and beings crushed by an invisible malefactor engendered no other than ourselves. The steps Herbert Hoover took during the Great Depression were not adequate to dig America out of the economy downfall. Programs that were created to put people back to work and avail state and local charities with aid didn’t benefit the majority of the population, compared to those who genuinely needed it. American citizens decreed Hoover’s presidency as the situation crescendo; not even all the way into the depression the public's ratings of Hoover were ostensibly low. In 1931, he pledged federal aid in case of starvation in the country; however he still had yet to witness the devastating starvation of Americans from all social stances and ages. He was rooted so deeply in his American philosophy that he could be viewed as neither intentionally ignorant nor merciless. Hoover grasped tight onto his political stance that hinder the efficient help he needed to provide while the Great Depression started to make a home in America; leading to the frustration and exasperation of American citizens.

Shortly after the Great Depression began, society began to fail quickly. The stock market crashed, the unemployment rate skyrocketed, business’ and banks were closing and people were losing their homes they had worked so hard for. Although President Hoover was attempting to help society, he believed that instead of governmental interventions you should be self-reliant and would not fund welfare programs that may incentivize not working. Hoover’s “attempts” to aide the economy were not enough to turn it around, and people began to set their sights on Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the oncoming election. FDR made it his goal to ensure relief, recovery and reform were provided for the country to counteract the Great Depression and to make up for all of the years of negligence and non interference from the government, collectively called the “New Deal” 15 major laws were created in just the first 100 days he was in office, and his “New Deal” was coming into fruition and the governments role was now to step in and take care of it’s people, and to neglect them no longer.

The Great Depression was a horrible time in American history, with as much as one-fourth of the population out of work. One of the hardest hit areas of the population was the agricultural center of the United States in the area that would come to be known as the Dust Bowl. The problems that the people of the Dust Bowl dealt with however were not a result of the Depression as a whole but instead were the result of a combination of bad farming decisions and a horrible drought. Even though the timing makes it seem like the Dust Bowl experience in the 1930’s was a part of the Great Depression as a whole it was a totally different disaster that was occurring at the same time. The experience of the families that lived in the Dust Bowl during the 1930’s cannot be described in any way but as horrible, depressing, and almost hopeless.

The depression, however, was not only in the United States. Countries all over suffered from World War One as well. Depression spread and unemployment continued to skyrocket. Poverty spread, people lost their money and homes and struggled to feed their families. People moved from town to town just searching for work. In desperate need of food, women would even grow their own food to feed their family. The homeless often lived in shacks, nicknamed ‘Hoovervilles’ after President Hoover. Although Hoover felt a deep concern for the homeless and unemployed and as much as he tried to restore the confidence of the nation, he felt that the government should not become directly involved in helping restore the economy. He felt it was up to the people to end this depression, which was spiraling out of control. He opposed government relief programs and urged business leaders to keep workers employed and maintain wages. He also had called on churches as well as private charities to help the needy and set up soup kitchens (seen in document 4). Hoover also set up public works programs, which provided jobs and helped the government at the same time. He also approved the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which would loan money to railroads, banks, and insurance companies to help them stay in business. Although Hoover had tried to help the economy, it had little effect. The depression continued to deepen. Hoover, however, was

The Great Depression was a severe economic panic that drastically impacted the quality of life in the 1930’s. The Depression left in its wake, widespread hunger, poverty and unemployment, as well as a worldwide economic crisis. President Hoover and Congress responded to the downturn with the ideas that individual initiative, voluntarism, and high tariffs, as well as adherence to the gold standard and smaller scale government programs would prove to be adequate in righting the economy. Hoover’s failure to abandon limited government out of fear that the American system would be disrupted (Document D) and his insensitivity to the depth of the crisis led to his increasing unpopularity as well as an increase in severity of the depression. Disheartened

Throughout the Great Depression people were getting tired and annoyed of President Hoover. For example, “Hoover was widely criticized for providing public funds to pay for food for farmers” (Hayes). Hoover was paying for the farmers but not for the civilians that were struggling, This is when he was criticized and people wanted a change in presidency. During the Great Depression, Hoover didn’t help the citizens at all and they blamed the Depression on him. This was how President Hoover got the people tired of him and annoyed of him. He didn’t help the citizens because he was afraid the United States would go into debt.

Meg Massey Mr. Lawson AP Language and Composition 7th 5 September 2014 The Grapes of Wrath Study Guide Answers (29-51) Chapters 19-20 1. Jim Casey hit the sheriff to subdue him to help Tom get away and consequently went to jail for his actions. 2.

The political situation of the time was complicated. The leaving president, Herbert Hoover, was not a crowd favorite. Many blamed him for the crash of the market and the development of all the ‘Hoovervilles’ around the country. Then in came the new president,

People today have have clean water and food, but during the Great Depression it was not like that. The people during the Great Depression were very poor and it was a struggle to get the daily necessities. The Great Depression had a very bad effect on people, because they could not find jobs, they didn’t have enough food or water, and they didn’t have good clothes.

People who lived through the great depression had a rough time. Families had little food or money. It didn't rain for months. Public people were hopeful through the whole thing it would rain. The coal mines shut down, therefore, nobody had jobs. It also was a drought during the great depression. The only money that anyone would get was when fathers would cut hair for the boys in the neighborhood.

What was it like to live during the great depression? How did it affect people's everyday life style? The great depression was an incredibly sad time for most people. People died, lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost everything. This time was definitely a time to remember and not forget, as we should not make the same mistakes as we did back then. During the great depression, people often became poor because they have lost their jobs. The author explains that “Father has lost his job and needed to find a new one” (Hastings). It was hard to keep their home “With no income coming their way, they had to let things go they didn't necessarily need” (Hastings). Families would have to go days, weeks and sometimes months without bathing themselves. Some people had to sell things in their house to buy food and pay for their home.

While today's unemployment is just below ten percent, the time period between Herbert Hoover's defeat and Franklin Roosevelt's commencement, otherwise known as the Great Depression, that percent reached nearly twenty-five percent. In addition to the high unemployment rate, in October 1929, when the stock market crashed, life became full of despair and troubles for every single individual and “the national government was not able to cushion the blow with unemployment insurance, payments to retirees, or welfare for mothers and children” (Crain). "Hoovervilles," or the city dumps poor people called home, were overflowing with trash and garbage, which could be considered a benefit, hence the fact that is where they mostly found their dinners. Less