12.2 Mrs. Stoffl

Searching for a Job + a Meal  Had a job one day then not the next  Loss of homes and moving to Hoovervilles  25% unemployment  “No help wanted here”  Bread lines: gov’t and charity agencies provided minimal food to the poor

 People sold furniture, jewelry, anything they owned to gain $ to live  Many evicted from homes moved to Hoovervilles:

● Farmers could at least grow food for their families, but made no $. ● However, many farmers lost their farms as they defaulted on loans and debt increased ● In ,000 were lost through foreclosure

● Demand for food declined by >40% after WWI ● ∴ Price of wheat decreased $2.16, $0.38 ● Farmers increased production in the hopes of selling more ● Caused more debt and worsened the problem ● Farmers defaulted on loans = many rural banks failed + farmers lost their land ● Price-Supports vetoed twice by President Coolidge ● Gov’t buys key produce (wheat, corn, cotton etc) at guaranteed prices and sells to the world market

● Drought on the Great Plains in the early 1930s made farming nearly impossible ● Plowing removed a protective layer of prairie grasses and farmers had overworked the land ● B/w the drought and the high winds there was nothing to hold the soil down = Dust Bowl ● Decade nicknamed the “dirty thirties” ● The storms killed livestock, birds, covered rivers and suffocated first

 Dust storms displaced 2x as much dirt as the we scooped out to build the Panama Canal  m/topics/dust-bowl m/topics/dust-bowl

 Families trapped in the Dust Bowl migrated out of the area ◦ Called Oakies (tho not all from Oklahoma) ◦ Often went West  CA, WA, OR  800,000+ ppl left the Dust Bowl area during the 1930s

● Family unity was the source of strength during the Great Depression ● Some families did fall apart due to the hardship ● Men crowded the streets, they were used to working but lost all self-respect during the Great Depression ● 300,000 hoboes wandered the streets, 2 million ppl were homeless during the Great Depression, ● 123 million total population in 1935 ● Today 3.5 million homeless, 318 million population

● Children suffered from poor diets and lack of $ for health care = severe health problems ● Rickets disease was common → ● Lack of Vitamin D ● Failing tax revenues = schools had to close or drastically shorten the year ● Wild boys – teenagers who took trains (often illegally) across the country in search of jobs

● Between 1928 – 1932 suicide rates rose more than 30% ● Drastic life changes ● People stopped going to the doctor, ● did not go to college, ● didn’t get married or have families due to the economic hardships of the time ● Stigma of poverty really hurt people ● Great kindness was shown by those who had $ and good spending (saving) habits were developed by this generation

 African Americans + Latinos were the worst off w/ the highest unemployment rates and faced discrimination  Mexican repatriation: ◦ Encourage Mexicans to return to Mexico