“Living a Lost Life”
Everyone has been lost at one point in life. Walter Evans has been depicting many parts of the Great Depression era. Having been a time of disparity, families did not always have homes. Living on the street at the time meant many things from having a low income source to using their income to support her kids or even both. Seeing that the single mother who could not supply her children with clothing shows that being a single mother is not always so easy. She is just sitting there thinking about how this will affect her kids futures and how they will end up overcoming it. Considering the time frame, most children had to do a lot of labor work that could not only be a way of helping the family but a way of showing respect.
Rose Mary never liked the idea of working and only landed a job as a teacher in a school in Battle Mountain but she quit because of her own selfish reasons. She didn’t really care for her children, she only worried about herself and all she wanted to do was paint. Most of the time, they couldn't earn enough money to pay rent and they did the ‘skedaddle’ to run away from bill collectors. The Walls family lived in more than 10 houses because they couldn’t pay rent and sometimes they were homeless, sleeping in the Arizona deserts and
Americans went from having business to unemployment and suffering from poverty, where some had no choice but, to live on the streets. This demonstrates to the readers how difficult it was for Lily and Jim from not going bankrupt and losing their house. Not only, did they worry about losing their jobs, but they also had to worry about feeding their kids seeing that they were too young to attend school or work. Lily did not obtain enough money to spend on things for them such as toys or affording brand new clothing. This demonstrates to the readers how significant this passage is because it affected the decisions Lily made in managing her family in this case, the only way to make extra money was if Lily sold bootleg liquor. Knowing that she desperately needed the money, she was willing to take the risk to prevent her husband to leave the family to find work. In conclusion, Lily and her family were able to make it through The Great Depression, and Jim was even offered a job in managing a ranch to a group of investors in
One might say that the Great Depression was a time of despair and feeling vulnerable from those who lived through it. However, writings have shown that some Americans during this era did not give up and had an optimistic view as opposed to a pessimistic view. In “Anacostia Flats” by John Dos Passos, it shows that the ex- service men during the Great Depression had a sense of determination for getting their bonus. The film 42nd Street demonstrated the tenacious spirit of Americans who worked on a play during The Great Depression. Meridel Le Seur’s “Women in the Breadlines” depicted the reality of struggling without employment but having the will to keep trying. During these times, society had not surrendered as several of them stood up for
McElvaine book reveals a collection of letters of the forgotten men, women, and children who suffered through the Great Depression. McElvaine puts the reader in direct contact with Depression victims, showing a feeling of what it was like to live through this dilemma. The writers of the letters came from different kinds of people:middle-class people, blacks, rural residents, the elderly, and children. By looking at the Great Depression from the perspectives of its victims of diverse backgrounds and McElvaine gives the reader a better understanding of their struggles on a more personal level.
Depression and poverty go hand and hand in this film. This family is faced with a parent that is an artist and another who cannot keep a job. Jeannette and her siblings are really faced with hunger only many occasions. Although Jeanette has faced many obstacles in life, somehow she has remained positive in the outlook on life. Many who go through similar situations use their less than underprivileged upbringings as excuses for why they remain unable to acquire adequate jobs or prosperous lives, but Walls avoids this completely. Even though her childhood proves rather rough, she realizes this does not prevent her from obtaining her goals. Brown wrote an article that details the effects of poverty stricken families that “depression could lead to poverty in some circumstances, poverty could lead to
The protagonist of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House is Eleanor Vance, an emotionally underdeveloped young woman with a dark past. As a character, she has a deep connection to the broad theme of family within the novel, and more specifically, how the lack of family when it is desperately needed leads to emptiness.
Although this book may a fiction work, it still hold a great deal of the mood of the 1930’s. The Americans of this time period were going through a huge economic depression. Most people were out of work and extremely poor. Food was scarce and homes were even harder to find. Many people lived in Hoovervilles made of tarp and tin. This book goes through the life of one family through their troubles. Although the family is made up, this would represent the untold struggles of thousands of American families.
Walter Evan’s depiction of life and the people during the depression of the 1930’s consist of poverty, love, and dedication. In the picture of Bud fields and his family, they almost look poor. That can be depicted by looking at the ratty clothes, them having no shoes and the only small room that’s holding six people while one woman looks pregnant. Because of that said it portrays a depressed expression on the faces along with tired and worn out. While that’s been pointed out, it can be drawn that they value the word family and love and are close together. They all look like something towards helping the family. The value and love that goes towards this family is shown in the picture by the pictures and shelf of nick-knacks on the back wall.
Freedman discusses the lives of the American children affected by the economic and social changes of the Great Depression. Middle-class-urban youth, migrant farm laborers, boxcar kids, and children whose families found themselves struggling for survival. Freedman also writes about the faced challenges like unemployment, insufficient food, and shelter. Drawing on memoirs, diaries, letters, and other firsthand accounts, and illustrated with archival photographs. Freedman’s book features the voices of those who endured the Depression.
For one, they had to start a new life with no money because they spent it all getting to California, and when they got to California, everybody hated them. The root of all of the this was being forced off of their land by the banks and the large landowners. This caused a snowball effect, where everything that happened in the book happened because they got kicked out of their land. They would have never gone to California, never had to sell most of their belongings, never had to work out in the blistering heat for a meager twenty cents an hour. The root of their hardships is not the Dust Bowl, or the Great Depression, because even though it might been part of the reason they had to travel to California for work, it didn’t make the bank or landowners kick the farmers off the land. They made the decisions for themselves, and they could have chosen to be sympathetic to the families, who had no jobs, and no home after being kicked off the
In a time when poverty and disorder runs rampant throughout the nation, an individual’s quest is to escape this reality to find a better life. Written by John Steinbeck, the fiction novel “Of Mice and Men” tells a story about the life on a ranch during the Great Depression. Throughout the story, the characters face many mental and physical challenges and have to surpass their difficulties. To do this, the characters try to focus on their dreams, to ignore the tragedies of the outside world and to find comfort. But when their dreams are shattered, their decisions and lifestyles change dramatically.
After families began to go broke they started to do unspeakable things to survive. There is a picture of four children posed next to a sign that reads “4 children for sale. Inquire within.” How desperate would a mother have to be in order to give away her own kids. As you do some more research, the women (mom) was married to an unemployed man who later left her. Not too late after did she find a boyfriend. This guy wanted nothing to do with the kids and was extremely abusive. The first 2 children were sold for two dollars a peice and the last two ran away from home in order to survive. There is another photograph that portrays a man with a poster on his back. It reads “I know 3 trades. I speak 3 languages. Fought for 3 years. Have 3 children and no work for 3 months; But I only want one job.” This picture accurately represents how much families are going through in the great depression.
Robert McElvaine’s passage “Loss of Childhood”, explains how the Great Depression affected both children and their families. For example the hardships many families faced during the Great Depression led children to assume responsibilities an earlier age. When mothers were forced to get jobs, older children were given the responsibility of looking after younger siblings.’’ The children had take on the work.
Walker Evan’s depiction of life and the people during the Great Depression of the 1930’s is daunting, isolated, and fatigued. A reason why the picture “ South Street, New York” is daunting is because, the men look like they do not have jobs. A reason why it is isolated is because the men are separated, not talking or looking at each other. A reason that its fatigued is because the men are just sitting around, for instance, the man on the right seems to be reading a newspaper while his head is being held up with his hand, and one of them is sleeping. There seems to be a lock on the door, maybe the gentleman laying down in front of the doors work there, he could be waiting for it to open. The man on the left looks like he is exploring the magazine
Walker Evans depiction of life and the people the depiction of the 1930s is depressing, hopeful, and honest. A excellent example of depressing is in the picture with the three men waiting for the copper and brass factory to open. For instance in the picture there is a sign that says re-opening September 12th which means the factory was shut down or waiting for the demand of copper and brass. Also in the picture there is a man who is reading a newspaper but as he is reading the paper he has his arm rested on his lap and his head rested in his hand with a gloomy expression on his face like he got laid off and is now waiting for the factory to reopen. Also there is a man who is laying on the ground sleeping on a sheet and the man on the right