The Hoover Family

The book “The Other America”, written by Michael Harrington, describes poverty in America in the 1950s and 1960s, when America became one of the most affluent and advanced nations in the world. The book was written in 1962, and Harrington states that there were about 50,000,000 (about 25% of the total population) poor in America at that time. The author did extensive research with respect to the family income levels to derive the poverty numbers, and used his own observations and experiences to write this book. This book addresses the reasons for poverty, the nature of poverty, the culture of poverty, the blindness of Middle Class America with respect to poverty, and the responsibility of all Americans in addressing the issue of poverty in America.

Supposedly, both the individuals with ascribed statuses with hereditary wealth and the poor and homeless have equal chances to become successful although, Orestes Bronwnson in The Laboring Classes, pointed out that this is not true. “Do the young man inheriting ten thousand pounds and the one whose inheritance is merely the gutter, start even?” (219). As a result, the harsh separation of the rich and the poor, where capitalism thrives and,” the division of the community into two classes, one which owns the funds…the other provides the labor” (216). The inhumane apprehension of a capitalist society that keeps its workers “in a permanent system, [has] given preference to the slave system” (214) says a lot about the evils of capitalism corresponding with the false American Dream. An outcome of capitalism is the frustrating rivalry between the poor. “There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining the country. The competition is maddening”

In the 1920s, Americans were trying to figure out what was everyone’s role in society. During this time women started to take on bigger jobs then housekeeping and African Americans are finally standing up for their race. Once 1929 hit, Herbert Hoover, America’s newest president, was viewed as an ‘American Superhero’ at that time because of everything he promised society; however, America gets hit by the Great Depression leaving society in a hole. While banking systems were unstable and overproduction were leaving people bankrupt, Herbert Hoover was blaming Europe and was failing to keep society financially stable. As his presidency went on, filmmakers made film cycles and gangster pictures like Little Caesar that portrayed America’s corrupt society during the Great Depression. By the end of his campaign, Hoover was known as the worst American ever which led to the rising of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Roosevelt saw the struggling society as an opportunity to help his campaign in which he created the New Deal. America was given an opportunity that allowed them to look forward to the future. During Herbert Hoover’s presidency, America did not support the federal government, but after Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for president and promised a New Deal, they began to look more favorably on the government.

Accurately established by many historians, the capitalists who shaped post-Civil War industrial America were regarded as corrupt “robber barons”. In a society in which there was a severe imbalance in the dynamics of the economy, these selfish individuals viewed this as an opportunity to advance in their financial status. Thus, they acquired fortunes for themselves while purposely overseeing the struggles of the people around them. Presented in Document A, “as liveried carriage appear; so do barefooted children”, proved to be a true description of life during the 19th century. In hopes of rebuilding America, the capitalists’ hunger for wealth only widened the gap between the rich and poor.

Americans have an increasing variety of choices to make during everyday life. Although this abundance of choice appears to be liberating, it is actually overwhelming and creates a high amount of stress and pressure on Americans. The abundance of choices combined with the unavailability of resources to sustain these choices creates a large deficit of happiness in American society. The essay “When it’s all too much” by Barry Schwartz brings fourth the idea of an overabundance of choices in America leading to widespread unhappiness. “Date Line Delhi” by Barbra Ehrenreich entails on how the outsourcing of American jobs, both intellectual and menial, is affecting American society negatively. The third essay, “Mismeasuring Poverty” goes into how the government skews the “poverty line” in order to make it appear it has been consistent over time, when in reality it has increased significantly in the past few decades. The overabundance of choices available to people in modern day America combined with a lack of resources to aid in sustaining this amount of choice, creates an escalation in the decrease of quality of life in America and the overall downfall of the “American dream”.

The industrial revolution introduced many new technology and improved our economic system. There have been a large increase in manufacture and machine tools since then. This led to better transportation, steam powered factories, consumer goods, a large workforce, and labour conditions. During the 1870’s , many financial issues had arise in the United States of America and in many European countries. Due to the financial crises that arise , it led to a major depressing era in history that is called the Panic of 1873. In “Standing at Armageddon” written by Nell Irvin Painter, the author discusses the progressive era and the United States economic crisis , as well as, social status during the ninetheeth century. Painter explains on how the high class white people owned most of the United States industry and due to their wealth, they owned fifty-one percent of the properties in America. They were the wealthiest one percent of the United States. There were different layers of wealth and social status which also integrates with race and ethnicity. Those who were wealthy in America weren’t the ones working hard and getting their hands dirty. Many low class were immigrants, women and blacks who worked in factories and were receiving low wages and poor work conditions. The low class owned only 1.2 percent of the properties in America. This caused major issues in the united states because the workers formed

Paul Krugman, author of “The Death of Horatio Alger,” evaluates the declining social mobility in America. He proposes that the decline in social mobility is causing the rich to continue to get richer and the poor to continue to get poorer. Krugman was inspired to discuss how this would result in the shocking loss of the American Dream, after he read a Business Week article that made him fearful of the considerable and drastic decline that would destroy the livelihood of many Americans. Krugman’s purpose was to make his audience; those of lower socioeconomic status, aware that the American Dream they hoped to achieve would soon become extinct. He creates a fearful and negative tone, in order to grab his audience's attention and inform them about the economic downfall. Krugman strongly conveys his message not only through his harsh tone, but by appealing to pathos, incorporating rhetorical questions that create a fearful mood, and appealing to logos to make a credible and sound argument.

The American Dream was a prodigious and fascinating objective, in which everyone wished to accomplish in the 1920’s. Money, social status and happiness was the ideal image. Everyone desired and craved to achieve this dream in hope to have the opportunity to acquire success and the image of a perfect life. But this dream was corrupt. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby shows us that the so called “American Dream” is in fact just an illusion everyone had but could not obtain, because everyone alway seemed to be missing something to their picture perfect life.

The documentary America the Story of Us: Bust summarizes the transition from the prosperous and roaring 20s to the struggling Depression. Focusing on events and causes leading to the Depression as well as its effect on the American population during the time, the film gives an overlook of one of the most unfortunate times in American history. Beginning with the public’s distress during the stock market crash the depression began to spiral as people lost jobs from layoffs, lost homes due to foreclosure, and lost many of life’s basic necessities. The prosperous 1920’s was behind them and the publics high consumerism and production rates of the time reached an all-time low. After summarizing the causes of the Depression the documentary continues bringing attention to the building of the Hoover Dam and how its completion boosted American moral and started the slow and hard fight out of the Depression.

Simply peering into a factory during the Gilded Age of the 1800’s would cause one to witness sights that could disgust and shake them to the core, with horrific child labor and sickening food production being only a couple. This Gilded Age allowed the U.S. to view itself in a positive light, despite the fact that it’s lower class was in a despairingly bad condition. The industrial advancements that were occuring overshadowed indescribably bad health and poverty that plagued the poorer people. However, the Progressive Era of the years that followed attempted to alleviate the problems the country was facing. During this time, not only were these problems brought to light, but social reformers and other individuals who advocated for change were

During the Gilded Age, Americans tended to focus more on what to do about the poor people rather than how their life is benefitting from economic development. They wondered what they should do in order to help the suffering class, or if they should even help them. Three authors took a stand about economic inequality and formed their own opinion on how it affected society.

In the book All-Pro Wisdom the 7 choices That Lead to Greatness by Matt Birk a retired NFL player .The book talks about how you can be how you can be successful in not only football but in the real world .The thesis of this paper is that the inequity of wealth in America in the past 10-15 years has made a significant power shift. The rich land in the 1% and the poor falls into the 99% tile.People who landed in the 1% tile basically control the things that we do on the daily and the people in the 99% tile have to deal with the ignorant rich people . The Government is controlled by rich people, America shows it values profit over the people by overseas to get people to work for let money and consists of disparities in the distribution of wealth. These topics that were

This “middle-class nation” is struggling to support all those who live in its borders and the misconceptions about wealth are vastly overrated. Furthermore, the idea of wealth and stability is incorrect, and there is a very sharp contrast between the rich and poor in the country. As the richest twenty percent of American hold ninety percent of the total household of the total household wealth in the country, those at the bottom have managed very poorly and suffer to get through the days.

The Great Depression broke down security and belief in American society during the early 20th century and brought out hidden prejudices. The once optimistic mood during the Roaring 20’s turned to pain. The dire economic situation caused Americans to return to past social stigmas where certain groups of people were seen as inferior; as a result, the American Dream, where everyone could seek their ideal of success, was reduced to merely a dream. John Steinbeck observed these changes in social behavior and witnessed the plight of many Americans during the Great Depression. Like in his later work, The Grapes of Wrath, he was inspired by his environment to expose the lives of people during the Great Depression using Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck observed these changes in social behavior and witnessed the plight of many Americans during the Great Depression. Steinbeck demonstrates in Of Mice and Men through the characters that the American Dream was naturally discriminatory towards certain groups of people because of common perceptions held during that period.

In the late nineteenth century, America was a country in its prime of industrialization and immigration influx. Known as the Gilded Age, this period defined the United States as the bustling powerhouse it is today, but at the cost of many social and political injustices that lay underneath the guise of the “American dream”. Among the urbanization and booming industry, there was national and racial discrimination, gender inequality, child exploitation and labor,