The Great Depression: A Short Story Of A House

The 1930s are remembered as hard times for many American families. With the crash of the stock market many families from all over suffered to survive on very little. Farmers found it hard to grow crops and earn money from them. City families struggled to live on nothing and were without jobs. Hobos were homeless people who traveled the railroads illegally to find jobs. Farm families, city families, and hobos each had to find ways to live and survive during The Great Depression.

The fresh morning air was cool against my face. Father had been gone for a while now, he had been called by his work for some “serious business.” As my sister Aliah, and I played in the pond by our 2 story house, we heard a faint muttering of Father’s pick-up.

The great depression all started with the stock market crash of 1928. The president at the time was herbert hoover who promised to keep peace. He ended up winning 444 electoral votes to his opposing opponent who only had 87 electoral votes (Notes). After the stock market crashed banks started to fail and had no money to give to people. Nobody had money to pay anyone so unemployment roared all the way to 23% from 3%.

The journal article begins by introducing an African American couple who resided in Russellville, Kentucky. James Wright held an occupation as a corn cutter while his wife Gladys worked as a cook in a white home. The time span of their journey occurred at the beginning of the great depression all the way through World War II. Seeking better employment opportunities, James traveled to Louisville. Although, his first couple trips were in vain. His resilience and determination eventually lead to a job working for International Harvester. During an era of many trials and tribulations, James found a way to support himself and his family by migrating from a rural to an urban area. By sharing this anecdote the author establishes a mood of hardship

During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the

The Great Depression, however inevitable, took the world by surprise when the stock market crashed in 1929. At first people did not fully understand the state of the economy, they could not wrap their heads around the transition from popping champagne bottles to eating bread crumbs for dinner. People were expecting a quick fix to the problem, assuming their lives to go back to normal after a few months, tragically underestimating the situation America was in. As a result, no one was prepared to properly combat the extreme shortage of food, jobs, and money in the years to come.

‘The hardships of the Great Depression in Australia were not shared equally.’ (Anderson et. al.,2012)

If this story had been told from a first person point of view, the reader my not have gotten this in depth of a description of the setting. Without the reader understanding that the house was boarded up and abandoned, to the point where it seems

Depression placed a dark brooding shadow over my mind. I was weighed down, oppressed by the burden of having to carry on with life. In my mind, there was a crushing sense of hopelessness that I have never felt before. The only therapy I found was taking that beautiful, freshly sharpened razor to my left arm. A sigh of relief departed me as I watched the bright red blood drip from my vein. The only burden I had was going to school and hiding my war scars. Each day, the darkness spread through me like cancer. My body withering away, I needed an escape route from this crucial disease. This all continued until the day I saw a light and the darkness began to fade

When I was 15 years-old, I didn’t realize that the next ten years of my life we’re changing history as they were happening. Those were the most difficult years of my life. America is still recovering from the Great Depression, and I am now 25 years old and married. I have created a good life for myself and tried to forget those horrible years. My parents are recovering slowly. I tried to help them as much as I could when I was younger, but they didn’t pay much attention to me. All those years I was working to make money for them, and they just argued with each other. I don’t think I will ever forget how hard my family took the Great Depression. At the time I didn’t know the painful struggle that The Great Depression would cause my family

Cecchetti, Stephen G. "Understanding the Great Depression: Lessons for Current Policy ." Monetary Economics (1997): 1-26.

Setting: Takes place in an orphanage of the streets of Chicago 1932 (The Great Depression)

The world had faced two main economic problems. The first one was the Great Depression in the early of 20th Century. The second was the recent international financial crisis in 2008. The United States and Europe suffered severely for a long time from the great depression. The great depression was a great step and changed completely the economic policy making and the economic thoughts. It was not only an economic situation bit it was also miserable making, made people more attention and aggressive until they might lose their lives. All the society was frightened from losing money, work and stable. In America the housing market was the main factor of the great depression. A crisis of liquidity appeared in the banks forming a credit crunch. This period was influenced by over extended stock market shortage of water in the south and over trusting. The American government put down some regulations to control the productions which were essential for the war.

“personal assertion of existential meaning in a universe of potential cosmic meaninglessness” (Mast, 246). In the adventure films and Westerns, heroes are willing to challenge authority for their personal beliefs and feelings. They take actions based on individual beliefs, definitions of right and wrong, and the urge to complete their personal goals and dreams. The helpless antiheroes in screwball comedies present the situation during the Great Depression from another aspect. They cannot make choices themselves because of others’ intervention, and unfortunate things just happen to them. The denial of humanness is one feature of antiheroes. Powerlessness of antiheroes in the ridiculous world definitely reflects the desperate situation faced by the Americans during the Great Depression.

There were many primary causes for The Great Depression, Unequal distribution of money to the economy,