Social Effects of the Great Depression By Angela Brown

Hoovervilles 15,000 homeless in New York City Homeless built shanty towns called Hoovervilles Mocked President Hoover – blamed for crisis Lived in piano boxes, rusted – out cars etc.

Farm Distress Low food prices cut income Lost farms, expelled tenant farmers and sharecroppers In protest farmers dumped thousands of gallons of milk-destroyed other crops Actions shocked a hungry nation

The Dust Bowl A region in the Great Plains where drought and dust storms took place for much of the 1930s = Dust Bowl 440,000 left Oklahoma in 1930s 300,000 left Kansas Many migrated to California as laborers

Dorothea Lange Taught the nation to see the realities of the Depression in the faces of suffering Americans Photographer – portrait studio in San Francisco Left studio for streets = photo journalist

Attention of Farm Security Administration (FSA) - set up by FDR Hired by FSA to document the lives of migrant farmers Most famous photograph “Migrant Mother”

Lange’s work helped creation of government migrant camps Inspired John Steinbeck’s Depression – novel The Grapes of Wrath

Impact on Health Some starved, some committed suicide Country people grew food, ate berries and wild plants City residents, sold apples and pencils – begged –fought over contents of restaurant garbage cans “relief gardens” planted to eat or barter

Stress on Families conditions declined – families moved in together divorce rate dropped (couldn’t afford separate households) men felt like failures especially if wives/children could find work

working women accused of taking jobs from men – had to worry about feeding hungry children Ford and many others would not hire married women AFL endorsed practice Worked as domestic servants, typing, nursing “women’s work”

Discrimination Increases Rise in suspicion/hostilities against minorities While labors filled low paying jobs typical of minorities – blacks no rights to jobs if whites out of work 56% African Americans unemployed in 1932

PP hotographer Gordon Parks documented plight of African Americans – first African American photographer on staff of Life Magazine – joined Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to counteract hopelessness of breadlines

Relief programs discriminated – black churches, and organizations like National Urban League gave private help – Father Divine opened soup kitchens Denied civil rights – education, voting, health-care Lynchings increased Hispanics – Asian – Americans deported (many born in U.S.)

“Scottsboro Boys” – 9 black boys riding rails arrested and accused of raping (2) white women on the train – 8 of 9 convicted sentenced to die Communist party supplied legal defense and organized demonstrations – helped overturn convictions

Bibliography