The Great Depression Was The Single Worst Economic Crisis

After World War II, the nation was blooming. Everything was growing, people were going to college, and wealth grew. The idea of the perfect American life was developed, this included a husband that worked and a wife that stayed home and took care of the house and children. To look at how women are affected by this perfect life I am analyzing “Governor Adlai Stevenson Tells College Women about Their Place in Life, 1955” and “Good Housekeeping: Every Executive Needs a Perfect Wife, 1956”.

The Great Depression was a very influential era in American history, affecting many future generations. One of the most prevalent impacts it had on society was the extreme poverty that swept across the nation, affecting both people in cities and in the country. The main cause for this poverty was the mass loss of jobs among the middle class. Millions lost their jobs and consequently their homes. Families lived out of tents and cars in shanty towns or Hoovervilles. In these camps, many people didn’t have their basic human needs met, children and adults alike starved. They lived in clothes that were caked in dirt and tattered, too small for growing children and too cold for the frail elderly. Government relief programs attempted to help but offered little support to the now impoverished families of the millions that lost everything.

Women gained notoriety during the depression as they were seen as the “pillar” of every family, staying home and raising

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

Families found themselves setting up in a way unfamiliar before. The Depression bombarded families who lost everything in their saving accounts and were suddenly facing poverty. Around nine million families lost everything they had in the banks creating two kinds of poor; the poor who were already suffering to make a living and new the “new poor ,” middle class Americans losing their homes left and right. Men and women’s roles

One problem that arose from the Great Depression was that women weren’t acknowledged as having problems during that time period. They were overlooked and make to be less important than anyone else. “...there must be as many women out of jobs in cities and suffering extreme poverty as there are men. What happens to them?” (Doc A). Women were deemed as invisible and the lack of attention paid to them lead to higher yields of unemployment for women during the Great Depression. In order to fix these problems, FDR created agencies such

This was especially true of working women. It is estimated that more than 2 million women were unemployed at the start of 1933, and many of those women were the sole support for their families. Thanks to the views and opinions of the working men, these women went largely unrecognized, not only by government officials, but also by the public

This source is valuable because it provides historians with evidence that shows how the New Deal actually made employment much more difficult for African Americans. For example, the NIRA led to many blacks losing jobs, employment rates were lower than ever due to the tripling of Federal taxes, and many black sharecroppers faced numerous difficulties.as a result of various New Deal programs. The value of this source is limited because the author is writing for a libertarian organization, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a democrat. Also, the author does not include any personal account from African Americans that suffered the effects of the New Deal.

The fortunate middle class Americans unexpectedly, during the Great Depression, didn’t even look twice at the luxuries of the world. Just as any American during that time, they had their focus on the necessities of life such as food and shelter. Many worried about losing their home because they could barely keep up with the paying bills. As a result, the Homeowners Loan Corporation (HOLC) helped refinance home loans supporting Americans and allowing them to stay within their homes. Many middle class and upper class women began writing their own personal budgeting accounts to help them pay bills as well as food. They also taught other women how to properly budget their own small sum of money. They budgeted to help them keep control of the money they had and make sure that they had the right amount of money with them all the time. In an article written by Richard C. and Sharon M. Hanes told a little bit about a lady and how she and other women handled money for the food for their family and others saying, “...prided herself on "making do" when feeding her family. If very careful, a woman could feed a family of six on five dollars a week...Mothers could make a pot roast last an entire week...Vegetable gardens sprang up in backyards and vacant city lots. Women did their own canning, pickling, and preserving…” (Hanes). These women were inspiring and thought of the most interesting

While it is true that blacks benefited from the progress from the more influential unions (higher wages) and the newly created welfare state, the new deal programs had gender and racial inequality structured in the systems. The implementation of the “family wage” assumed that a full- time breadwinner of the family supported the dependents, while a non-wage-earning wife stayed a home. This notion largely excluded people of color. Unemployment insurance in 1935 did not cover agricultural and domestic workers. Consequently, “55 percent of African American workers and 87 percent of all wage-earning African American women were excluded from one of the chief benefits of the New Deal” (Hall 1241).

American life prior to World War II may have not been the best from 1931-1939. Already in the Great Depression that started in 1929 people were left very discouraged and hopeless. In 1932 the economy was the worst it had ever been, it had hit rock bottom (p. 850). Many had lost their jobs and over 11 million Americans could not find work (p. 850). America was at its worst and people were hungry, suicide rates had risen and people were having less children than ever before. People’s reaction to the

The Great Depression broke people and their relationships apart. It strapped Americans of their money, way of life, and societal pattern. In Russell Baker’s memoir, Growing up, he talks about this and the experience his mother, Lucy Elizabeth, endured when giving up her youngest daughter Audrey. After the death of his father, George Baker, his mother was left with only “a few dollars of insurance money, a worthless Model T, several chairs, a table to eat from… no way to earn a living, and no prospects for the future” (Baker 84). She couldn’t care for her entire

In 1929 family bonds were tested. During the Great Depression either family’s triumphed or were dissolved. The stress of the Great Depression, surprisingly caused the divorce rates to go down however this is not as good as it sounds. Men would choose the “poor mans divorce” Instead of legally divorcing. This caused problems for two reasons, it changed statistics making it look like people weren’t divorcing, when in reality they were. More importantly because they couldn’t afford a family, the husband would have to leave their wife and kids when they needed him most (Weebly). Things seemed to be especially difficult for unemployed men because they were considered the head of the family and the ones to bring food to the table. Traditional conceptions

Family pressure during the great depression was unlike any the U.S. has ever seen. Everything about families changed in the 1930s. Couples during the depression delayed marriage, and at the same time the divorce rates dropped because people could not afford to pay for two households. Birthrates also dropped and for the first time in American history below the replacement level. Income was closed to none in all families; regular income had dropped by 35% just in the years Hoover was in office. Families had a lot of stress; some pulled together and made do with what they had others pushed away. People turned to who ever they had, family, friends, and after all else the government. Although there were rich people in the depression as well

Abelson, and the article is titled “‘Women Who Have No Men to Work for Them’: Gender and Homelessness in the Great Depression, 1930-1934.” In this article, Elaine S. Abelson elaborately explains the effects that the Great Depression had on women, specifically working women. Millions of women had jobs before the stock market crashed. However, the Great Depression caused working women to lose their jobs at a faster rate than men. In addition, it was extremely hard for women to find ways of earning income because many places of employment discriminated against them. Abelson emphasizes that the majority of women who were unable to support their families were forced to adapt to a homeless lifestyle. However, the few married women who acquired jobs during the depression were envied for taking away a man’s