Social Effects of the Depression Chapter 15: Section 2 Social Effects of the Depression

Poverty Spreads money was gone people were being evicted many joined the ranks of the poor People living in miserable poverty, Elm Grove, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma. August 1936. Photographer: Dorothea Lange. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm

Hoovervilles Squatter's Camp & Squatter camp, California, November 1936. Photographer: Dorothea Lange. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm mocked the President, Herbert Hoover, for his failure to resolve the crisis shanty towns shacks of tar paper, cardboard, scrap material

Squatters in Mexican section in San Antonio, Texas Squatters in Mexican section in San Antonio, Texas. House was built of scrap material in vacant lot in Mexican section of San Antonio, Texas. March 1939. Photographer: Russell Lee. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm

http://amhist.ist.unomaha.edu/picsList.php

http://www.mohonasen.org/dmsss/FSaccocio/Depdefault.htm many went from one place to another, hitchhiking or riding the rails typically referred to as hobos Drifters

Toward Los Angeles, California. 1937. Photographer: Dorothea Lange Toward Los Angeles, California. 1937. Photographer: Dorothea Lange. Perhaps 2.5 million people abandoned their homes in the South and the Great Plains during the Great Depression and went on the road. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm http://www.mohonasen.org/dmsss/FSaccocio/Depdefault.htm

http://www.mohonasen.org/dmsss/FSaccocio/Depdefault.htm

Farm Distress many lost their farms tenant farmers / sharecroppers expelled could not sell products at a good enough price, some even destroyed crops or dumped out gallons of milk A sharecropper's yard, Hale County, Alabama, Summer 1936. Photographer: Walker Evans http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm

Porch of a sharecropper's cabin, Hale County, Alabama, Summer 1936 Porch of a sharecropper's cabin, Hale County, Alabama, Summer 1936. Photographer: Walker Evans. The marginal and oppresive economy of sharecropping largely collapsed during the great Depression. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm

The Dust Bowl Central and Southern Great Plains thick layer of prairie grasses protected topsoil had been plowed up by over-farming stripping soil of its natural protection drought http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm

caused great dust storms that spread across the country http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm caused great dust storms that spread across the country “black blizzards” drought & winds would go on for 7 years

many would move away from the Great Plains and go west to California “Okies” Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother," destitute in a pea picker's camp, because of the failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tent in order to buy food. Most of the 2,500 people in this camp were destitute. By the end of the decade there were still 4 million migrants on the road. http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/Depression.htm http://www.ou.edu/special/albertctr/archives/gdweb.htm

The photograph that has become known as "Migrant Mother" is one of a series of photographs that Dorothea Lange made in February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. Lange was concluding a month's trip photographing migratory farm labor around the state for what was then the Resettlement Administration. In 1960, Lange gave this account of the experience:  I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960). http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/photoessay.htm

Poverty Strains Society many people starved to death or went hungry planted “relief gardens” tuberculosis cases rose Waiting for the semimonthly relief checks at Calipatria, Imperial Valley, California. Typical story: fifteen years ago they owned farms in Oklahoma. Lost them through foreclosure when cotton prices fell after the war. Became tenants and sharecroppers. With the drought and dust they came West, 1934-1937. Never before left the county where they were born. Now although in California over a year they haven't been continuously resident in any single county long enough to become a legal resident. Reason: migratory agricultural laborers. March 1937. Photographer: Dorothea Lange. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm

Stresses on Families living conditions worsened as families moved in with one another some men abandoned their families greatest job losses were in industry Part of the daily lineup outside the State Employment Service Office. Memphis, Tennessee. June 1938. Photographer: Dorothea Lange. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm

Discrimination Increases http://encarta.msn.com/media_461558295_761584403_-1_1/Evicted_Sharecroppers.html African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans suffered as whites began demanding their low-paying jobs

government relief programs discriminated against minorities justice system ignored the rights of minority Americans Relief line waiting for commodities, San Antonio, Texas. March 1939. Photographer: Russell Lee. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm

Scottsboro Boys nine black youth were arrested and accused of raping two white women eight were convicted and sentenced to die by an all white jury Scottsboro Boys in 1937 http://www.supremecourthistory.org/02_history/subs_history/02_c11.html

The Scottsboro Boys http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/trialheroes/essayhorton.html

Communist Party Members helped supply legal defense and organized demonstrations helped overturn convictions and release boys Samuel L. Leibowitz, one of the country's most prominent defense attorneys, was hired by the legal arm of the Communist Party (U.S.) to represent the nine teenagers accused of rape http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scottsboro/scottsb.htm

Stories of Survival some families had a $1 a week to live on never got to high school, “as survival was more important” 12 hour days / 6 days a week / $3.00 “White Angel Bread Line” – Dorothea Lange http://encarta.msn.com/media_461520900_761584403_-1_1/The_White_Angel_Bread_Line.html