1. By: Stuart Penoff

2. Before all this chaos occurred, I used to work in a steel mill in downtown Chicago making decent pay. I lived in a small one room apartment on the Southside of Chicago, making about 75 cents an hour at the mill. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?fsaall:14:./temp/~ammem_OoeM::displayType=1:m856sd=fsa:m856sf=8a29919:@@@

3. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi- bin/query/I?fsaall:18:./temp/~ammem_wVU1::displayType=1:m856sd=fsa:m856sf=8a33221:@@@ On October 24, 1929 the American business world died; the stock market began its rapid decline and people began losing their jobs, money, homes, and families. I was among this group of people when only a few weeks after Black Thursday, I was laid off from the steel mill and started my life as a hobo on the streets of Chicago.

4. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi- bin/query/I?fsaall:16:./temp/~ammem_k6zm::displayType=1:m856sd=fsa:m856sf=8a18471:@@@ Shortly after I began living on the streets, I joined a group of other homeless factory workers and pitched in to build a shelter, or as all the angry unemployed called it, a “Hooverville”. It wasn’t the greatest home I’ve ever lived in, but it was better than the rat and sewage infested streets of Packing Town and I was grateful for it.

5. http://www.nisk.k12.ny.us/fdr/wait_for_fdr/33012401.gif Once FDR introduced the New Deal programs, the WPA came to Chicago and I was provided with a job: planting trees and greenery around the slaughterhouses and factories of downtown Chicago, beautifying local schools, paving streets, and building playgrounds for children around the town.

7. http://ingrimayne.com/econ/EconomicCatastrophe/G reatDepression.html http://ingrimayne.com/econ/EconomicCatastrophe/G reatDepression.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html http://www.nisk.k12.ny.us/fdr/FDRnewdeal.html http://newdeal.feri.org/survey/40c22.htm