The Role Of Oppression In The Great Depression

The great depression was a terrible time for many families in the United States. After the economic boost of the 1920’s, many people spent their many on stocks and credit. Everything went wrong after the stock market crash on October 29. 1929. People lost the money they had in banks when they panicked and tried to get all their money out at the same time. The banks didn’t have enough money to give back.The Braddock family suffered economic hardship, emotional distress and family unity during the great depression. The Braddock family had trouble with finding money, paying bills, keeping it together- both their emotions and family.

Imagine this. You wake up one morning in the year 1929, in your luxurious, pricey mansion. You then make your way downstairs to eat that nice big breakfast. Then you kiss your family good bye and head off to your fancy job. You come home that evening and suddenly you’re flat broke. Meaning all your money and life’s savings vanished. Unreal right? Well it was real for hundreds of families on October 29, 1929. The day the stock market crashed and when America’s confidence was challenged greatly.

Families had to split up in search for work and many children got jobs to make extra money for their families. In 1933, when Roosevelt took office, “24.9% of the total workforce or 12,830,000 people were unemployed” according to the FDR Library. This statistic shows just how much the average American was struggling to keep themselves and their families afloat. The FDR Library also states that “drastic drops in farm commodity prices resulted in farmers losing their lands and homes due to foreclosure” and that “gangs of unemployed youth, whose families could no longer support them, rode the rails as hobos in search of work.” The previous excerpts depict America’s loss of stability because the people providing food were out of jobs and parents had to send their children away since they could not afford to care for them any further. Thankfully, President Roosevelt and his administration stepped in soon afterward to correct the

The Great Depression affected Americans no matter their educational stance or social class. For example, a college educated woman named Vera had extreme problems with acquiring a job. Due to her inexperience, no one would hire her. The didn’t care if she had a college

The Depression changed social structure in America forever. “The real story of the 1930’s is how individual families endured and survived, whether battling the despair of hunger and unemployment in the city of the fear of unending drought and forced migration in the dust bowl of the Great plains.” (Press, Petra pg 6)

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

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

The Great Depression. The worst financial crisis to ever hit America. Unemployment rates of over 25%. A 50% decrease in national income. Billions of dollars lost in a single day. (Trotter, pg.8) The Depression affected everyone in America. Young and old, rich and poor, black and white, none were spared. However, for America’s 12 million African Americans (Encyclopedia of Race and Racism) the Depression didn’t just start in 1929.(Africa to America: From the Middle Passage Through the 1930s) African Americans were a subjugated minority. Racism wasn’t only present in America, it was accepted by many. In the South, Democrats fought to keep African Americans under harsh segregation and oppressive laws. (Trotter, pg. 9) Efforts to relieve

The Great Depression affected many people and families in the 1930s. They had to deal with many different challenges and hardships. These families had to face hunger, unemployment, and some even with being homeless. Some families crowded into a small apartment or house with other families. Others lost their homes and moved into a tent in a Hooverville. To help with fathers being laid off from work, mothers would sometimes go out and look for work. In other cases, teens would travel by freight train or hitchhiking to find a job that they could send money home with. More often the husband would leave his family in search of a new job. This left family relationships torn up. The family would miss their father, but if he were to return without a job things would sometimes get worse. The fathers would feel like failures and would mope around the house. Thus leading to irritated wives which lead to more fights between them. Some fathers

The 1920s seemed to promise a future of a new and wonderful way of life for America and its citizens . Modern science, evolving cultural norms, industrialization, and even jazz music heralded exciting opportunities and a future that only pointed up toward a better life. However, cracks in the facade started to show, and beginning with the stock market crash of 1929 the wealth of the country, and with it the hopes and expectations of its people, began to slip away. The Great Depression left a quarter of the population unemployed and much of the rest destitute and uncertain of what the future held. Wealth vanished, people took their money out of banks, and plans were put on hold. The most significant way in which the Great Depression affected Americans’ everyday lives was through poverty because it tore relationships apart and damaged the spirit of society while unexpectedly bringing families together in unity.

The Great depression caused many problems for black people and they were greatly affected by it. Problems of the Great Depression affected every American, however, African Americans were the most affected. By 1932 half of Black Americans were out of work. In some Northern cities, blacks were fired so that a white person could take their job. But yet again, racial violence became more common, especially in the South. Even when President Roosevelt was trying to end the Great Depression there was still a conflict between the blacks and whites in the New Deal Housing and employment projects. This just goes to show that once everything has been set in motion that it can't really become a non-normal thing. Everyone was mostly worrying about themselves and their own people that they didn't bother

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 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.

Why was the Great Depression such a hard time for Americans? In 1929 the stock market crashed in America. Which resulted in massive amounts of disarray, and caused Nine Thousand U.S. Banks to Fail. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, African Americans were hit the hardest by the scarcity of jobs and money. During the Great Depression almost all of the blacks were fired from their jobs and had no way to sustain themselves or their families due to the loss of food and money. After being fired it was nearly impossible for them to get another job, and if they did happen to be hired they received almost no pay. John Hardman wrote, “The Great Depression of the 1930s worsened the already black economic situation of black Americans. African

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