The Great Depression And Its Downward Economic Spiral: Part 2 Of A 3 Part Series
"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
" -Sir Winston Churchill In part 2 of this 3 part series, we will deal with the effects of the fall out from the Great Depression.
In part 1 we explored its causes, but how devastating was it to the American people? Home Sweet Homelessness Although Hoover had predicted that poverty would be banished from America, by 1930 shanty towns or squatter communities, bitterly known as "Hoovervilles", began to sprout up all over the United States from the fallout of the Great Depression.
These ragtag "communities" were composed of people who had been evicted from their homes or farms.
These individuals, branded hobos, were obligated to live a loathsome survival among monstrous piles of accumulated trash made of discarded public scraps of food or items of value that they could sell.
The poor and disposed would cook the meager portions of food they fished from this trash in tin cans over open fires covering themselves with old newspapers called "Hoover Blankets" while wearing "Hoover Shoes" with holes in the soles.
The only scenery was blurred by dust in the summer and mud in the winter as they inhaled the stench from all of the trash and the highly unsanitary dilapidated outhouses.
Even the kids would exhibit signs that the "Hard Times are still hovering over us.
" Public latrines used for overnight stays would be labeled "Hoover Villas.
" Americans held the President accountable.
They were angry and frustrated with the Hoover Administration's indifference to their homelessness.
Hoover refused to help.
He felt Americans would become dependent on handouts and refuse to look for work.
Many of these Hoovervilles were burned down by sheriffs and vigilante groups, vexed by the vagabond's hateful presence.
The Great Dust Bowl At the end, of World War I, areas of 350,000,000 acres were being cultivated by 6,500,000 farmers.
This sustained about ΒΌ of America's total population.
Owning and operating farms had become capitalistic ventures by the 1920's.
During that time, farm values rose to $125.
00 an acre while other lands fetched as much as $300.
00, sometimes more.
Benefiting from the boom period, quite commonly, the farmer became a speculator too.
He purchased more land for the sake of a quick profitable sale, augmenting his accumulating bank debts.
Some of the farmers even had second mortgages on their properties.
With the fluctuation in property values, sometimes, the owner's equity would be wiped out.
By the time the tragedy of the crash and the Dust Bowl devastation set in, about $1,000,000,000 of farm mortgages were owned by the twelve land banks.
By April, 1930 there were 3,187,000 unemployed throughout the nation.
This increased to 4,000,000 by October, 1930.
During this time the "Dust Bowl", a terrible drought, devastated the Great Plains, causing much suffering and worsening the farmer's tenuous situation.
The depression and drought hit farmers from the Great Plains the hardest.
Many of these farmers were forced to seek government assistance.
Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi were the states most severely hit by the drought.
Despite all efforts, almost a million farm families from the hardest hit areas, dealing with unemployment, disease and a diminishing food supply, were forced to migrate to other states in search of work.
Intense conflicts escalated between new comers and local residents, largely in the West, in a fight for survival.
People migrating from farms to industrial cities in search of job opportunities were surprised to find that the employment situation was not as good as they had anticipated.
One out of three workers was unemployed.
Family Life and the Death of Self-Respect The American home was caught up in the country's greatest crisis.
With vanished incomes and out of work relatives, many families had to live in severely overcrowded homes, living under stressful and unsanitary conditions.
Their menu was stripped of meat and adequate nutrition.
Hundreds of thousands of apartments remained vacant throughout the nation for lack of paying tenants.
Some slept in the basements of courthouses until federal transient camps were set up.
Mothers watched day after day as their children grew thinner.
If lucky, they would take their place on the bread line that snaked down the sidewalk filled with gloomy men, weeping women and hungry children hoping and praying that there would be enough food to go around.
People from all economic levels populated these lines.
It is a known fact that in January of 1931, there were 82 bread lines in New York City that served 85,000 meals a day.
The lines began forming as early as 4 AM.
These individuals had to wait for two to three hours just to partake of a meager and tasteless meal, offered with a crust of stale bread.
It was a humiliating and embarrassing experience for those waiting their turn to ask for a handout.
This made them fully aware of their inability to provide for their family.
They were only allowed to sit for a few minutes, and then they would be asked to leave so others could eat.
Many would go from bread line to bread line throughout the day, forced to wait in line to beg for another meal.
Welfare groups and churches were helpless because they depended on contributions from bankrupt communities.
Even the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army were depleting all resources.
All possessions, from furniture to trinkets, were pawned.
They were totally broke.
The unemployed provider was tired, clutching to dying threads of dignity.
It depressed him to see himself and his family clad in worn clothes and shoes.
Stressed over his fruitless search for work, he would turn to alcohol to drown his sorrow.
Many had to rely on their wives and children to help make ends meet.
Some would resort to selling apples on street corners.
Desertion, which was the poor man's way of divorce, ran rampart.
These men, feeling guilty and humiliated because they couldn't fulfill the role that was expected of them, would abandon their families, leaving them entirely alone to fend for themselves.
Families in general dreaded more children, which meant more mouths to feed and clothe.
They would enforce birth control, reducing the proportion of population growth.
For example, in 1940, the census registered 131,669,275 persons living in the United States in comparison to 122,775,046 in 1930.
So far we've seen a serious bleak view of human suffering, the likes of which we hope to God will never be repeated again in the United States.
These people were caught totally unprepared for a devastating financial collapse of this magnitude.
Multiply each heartbreaking story in today's economy by the millions and you have a better understanding of the immensity of what the Great Depression was.
In part 3, we'll explore just what America, its government and its citizenry, did to try to recover from this horrible devastation.
" -Sir Winston Churchill In part 2 of this 3 part series, we will deal with the effects of the fall out from the Great Depression.
In part 1 we explored its causes, but how devastating was it to the American people? Home Sweet Homelessness Although Hoover had predicted that poverty would be banished from America, by 1930 shanty towns or squatter communities, bitterly known as "Hoovervilles", began to sprout up all over the United States from the fallout of the Great Depression.
These ragtag "communities" were composed of people who had been evicted from their homes or farms.
These individuals, branded hobos, were obligated to live a loathsome survival among monstrous piles of accumulated trash made of discarded public scraps of food or items of value that they could sell.
The poor and disposed would cook the meager portions of food they fished from this trash in tin cans over open fires covering themselves with old newspapers called "Hoover Blankets" while wearing "Hoover Shoes" with holes in the soles.
The only scenery was blurred by dust in the summer and mud in the winter as they inhaled the stench from all of the trash and the highly unsanitary dilapidated outhouses.
Even the kids would exhibit signs that the "Hard Times are still hovering over us.
" Public latrines used for overnight stays would be labeled "Hoover Villas.
" Americans held the President accountable.
They were angry and frustrated with the Hoover Administration's indifference to their homelessness.
Hoover refused to help.
He felt Americans would become dependent on handouts and refuse to look for work.
Many of these Hoovervilles were burned down by sheriffs and vigilante groups, vexed by the vagabond's hateful presence.
The Great Dust Bowl At the end, of World War I, areas of 350,000,000 acres were being cultivated by 6,500,000 farmers.
This sustained about ΒΌ of America's total population.
Owning and operating farms had become capitalistic ventures by the 1920's.
During that time, farm values rose to $125.
00 an acre while other lands fetched as much as $300.
00, sometimes more.
Benefiting from the boom period, quite commonly, the farmer became a speculator too.
He purchased more land for the sake of a quick profitable sale, augmenting his accumulating bank debts.
Some of the farmers even had second mortgages on their properties.
With the fluctuation in property values, sometimes, the owner's equity would be wiped out.
By the time the tragedy of the crash and the Dust Bowl devastation set in, about $1,000,000,000 of farm mortgages were owned by the twelve land banks.
By April, 1930 there were 3,187,000 unemployed throughout the nation.
This increased to 4,000,000 by October, 1930.
During this time the "Dust Bowl", a terrible drought, devastated the Great Plains, causing much suffering and worsening the farmer's tenuous situation.
The depression and drought hit farmers from the Great Plains the hardest.
Many of these farmers were forced to seek government assistance.
Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi were the states most severely hit by the drought.
Despite all efforts, almost a million farm families from the hardest hit areas, dealing with unemployment, disease and a diminishing food supply, were forced to migrate to other states in search of work.
Intense conflicts escalated between new comers and local residents, largely in the West, in a fight for survival.
People migrating from farms to industrial cities in search of job opportunities were surprised to find that the employment situation was not as good as they had anticipated.
One out of three workers was unemployed.
Family Life and the Death of Self-Respect The American home was caught up in the country's greatest crisis.
With vanished incomes and out of work relatives, many families had to live in severely overcrowded homes, living under stressful and unsanitary conditions.
Their menu was stripped of meat and adequate nutrition.
Hundreds of thousands of apartments remained vacant throughout the nation for lack of paying tenants.
Some slept in the basements of courthouses until federal transient camps were set up.
Mothers watched day after day as their children grew thinner.
If lucky, they would take their place on the bread line that snaked down the sidewalk filled with gloomy men, weeping women and hungry children hoping and praying that there would be enough food to go around.
People from all economic levels populated these lines.
It is a known fact that in January of 1931, there were 82 bread lines in New York City that served 85,000 meals a day.
The lines began forming as early as 4 AM.
These individuals had to wait for two to three hours just to partake of a meager and tasteless meal, offered with a crust of stale bread.
It was a humiliating and embarrassing experience for those waiting their turn to ask for a handout.
This made them fully aware of their inability to provide for their family.
They were only allowed to sit for a few minutes, and then they would be asked to leave so others could eat.
Many would go from bread line to bread line throughout the day, forced to wait in line to beg for another meal.
Welfare groups and churches were helpless because they depended on contributions from bankrupt communities.
Even the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army were depleting all resources.
All possessions, from furniture to trinkets, were pawned.
They were totally broke.
The unemployed provider was tired, clutching to dying threads of dignity.
It depressed him to see himself and his family clad in worn clothes and shoes.
Stressed over his fruitless search for work, he would turn to alcohol to drown his sorrow.
Many had to rely on their wives and children to help make ends meet.
Some would resort to selling apples on street corners.
Desertion, which was the poor man's way of divorce, ran rampart.
These men, feeling guilty and humiliated because they couldn't fulfill the role that was expected of them, would abandon their families, leaving them entirely alone to fend for themselves.
Families in general dreaded more children, which meant more mouths to feed and clothe.
They would enforce birth control, reducing the proportion of population growth.
For example, in 1940, the census registered 131,669,275 persons living in the United States in comparison to 122,775,046 in 1930.
So far we've seen a serious bleak view of human suffering, the likes of which we hope to God will never be repeated again in the United States.
These people were caught totally unprepared for a devastating financial collapse of this magnitude.
Multiply each heartbreaking story in today's economy by the millions and you have a better understanding of the immensity of what the Great Depression was.
In part 3, we'll explore just what America, its government and its citizenry, did to try to recover from this horrible devastation.
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