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

2. 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 Photographer: Dorothea Lange.

3. Hoovervilles
Squatter's Camp & Squatter camp, California, November Photographer: Dorothea Lange.
mocked the President, Herbert Hoover, for his failure to resolve the crisis
shanty towns
shacks of tar paper, cardboard, scrap material

4. 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 Photographer: Russell Lee.

6.
many went from one place to another, hitchhiking or riding the rails
typically referred to as hobos
Drifters

7. Toward Los Angeles, California. 1937. Photographer: Dorothea Lange
Toward Los Angeles, California 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.

9. 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 Photographer: Walker Evans

10. Porch of a sharecropper's cabin, Hale County, Alabama, Summer 1936
Porch of a sharecropper's cabin, Hale County, Alabama, Summer Photographer: Walker Evans. The marginal and oppresive economy of sharecropping largely collapsed during the great Depression.

11. 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

12. caused great dust storms that spread across the country
caused great dust storms that spread across the country
“black blizzards”
drought & winds would go on for 7 years

14. 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.

15. 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).

16. 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, 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 Photographer: Dorothea Lange.

17. 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 Photographer: Dorothea Lange.

18. Discrimination Increases
African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans suffered as whites began demanding their low-paying jobs

19. government relief programs discriminated against minorities
justice system ignored the rights of minority Americans
Relief line waiting for commodities, San Antonio, Texas. March Photographer: Russell Lee.

20. 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

21. The Scottsboro Boys

22. 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

23. 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