Life during the Depression

hen the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, few Americans believed that a decade long depression was underway. After all, only 4 million Americans had money invested on Wall Street. 90% of American households owned precisely

zero shares of stock. President Herbert Hoover quickly addressed the nation, professing his faith in the soundness of the American economy. But soothing words were clearly not enough to stop the shrinking of a deeply flawed national economic system.

The stock market crash had many short-term consequences. Banks that carelessly lent money to futures traders to buy stock on margin found that many of those loans would go unpaid. Consequently, a rash of bank failures swept the nation. This had a tremendous ripple effect on the economy. If a working-class family was unfortunate enough to have their savings held a failed bank — too bad for them, all their money was lost.

As Americans saw banks close and savings disappear, less money was spent on goods and services. Many consumers who had bought the new conveniences of the Golden Twenties on the installment plan were unable to make their payments. Businesses began to lay off workers to offset new losses. Many manufacturers had overproduced and created huge inventories. Unemployment brought even less spending and the economy slowed yet another notch. The downward spiral continued into 1933. The $87 billion 1929 New York Stock Exchange was worth a mere $15 billion in 1932. Unemployment rose from 1.5 million Americans in 1929 to a debilitating 12 million in 1932.

Despair swept the nation. In addition to the nationwide 25% unemployment rate, many laborers were forced to choose between wage cuts and a pink slip. Most people who retained their jobs saw their incomes shrink by a third. Soup kitchens and charity lines, previously unknown to the middle class, were unable to meet the growing demand for food.

Desperate for income, thousands performed odd jobs from taking in laundry to collecting and selling apples on the street. College professors in New York City drove taxicabs to make ends meet. Citizens of Washington State lit forest fires in the hopes of earning a few bucks extinguishing them. Millions of backyard gardens were cultivated to grow vegetables. Americans prowled landfills waiting for the next load of refuse to arrive in the hopes of finding a few table scraps among the trash.

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Hitting Rock Bottom: Breadlines & Hoovervilles

The Great Depression left the nation devastated. Families were financially unable to scrape up money for their next meal. Breadlines and soup kitchens were established as charitable organizations giving free bread and soup to the impoverished.

The level of homeless citizens significantly increased during the 1930's as some people lost everything. Hobos were a common sight as they were attracted to urban settlements - usually near soup kitchens. Formed on the outskirts of cities, Shanty Towns were dense, little towns made up of tents and small shacks put by homeless people as shelter. Hoovervilles became an interchangeable term for Shanty Towns because of President Herbert Hoover's involvement in the depression. He's widely blamed for the steep economic downfall while the government did little to help it. "Between 1929 and 1933, more than 100,000 businesses failed across the nation. When President Hoover left office in 1933, national unemployment hovered at a staggering 13 million — nearly 25 percent of America's work force" (U-S-History). President Hoover seemed to do no good for the country as he drove American citizens into these Shanty Towns appropriately named after him.

Farmers & the Great Depression

Farmers had been suffering even before the Great Depression. The basic reality of farm life was the low prices paid to farmers for crops they grew for market. In 1919, a bushel of wheat sold for $2.16; in 1932, it sold for 38 cents. A pound of cotton fetched 35.34 cents in 1919; the same pound fetched 6.52 cents in 1932. The sharp fall in prices was evident with other farm products—corn and beans, cattle and hogs. The income farmers generated was not enough to allow them to continue farming. They could not pay their debts, purchase more seed, repair equipment, and buy what their families needed to survive. Overburdened by the diminishing returns for their labor, some farmers buckled under the stress.

Falling crop prices and accumulating debt had made it a struggle for farmers to keep their heads above water. Many failed to stay afloat and sank so deep that they lost their farms. To make matters even worse, the Great Plains was suffering through a choking drought, an ecological disaster that lasted for years. As a result, many more farmers lost their farms and moved. They traveled about the country, looking for work and fighting for survival.

The Worst Hard Time: The Dust Bowl

Countless numbers of farmers moved onto the Great Plains and plowed under much of the natural grasses in order to plant oceans of winter wheat in the early 1900s. All this intensive farming reduced the amount of grassland available to graze livestock, causing overgrazing on the Plains. In addition, new tractor-pulled disk plows pulverized the soil, making it more

vulnerable to wind erosion. Population growth, new methods of farming and a major water shortage tipped the ecological balance of the region. Consequently, the dwindling grassy safety net could no longer stop the top soil from blowing away during periods by the mid-1930s.

Periods of high winds resulted in disaster on the Great Plains throughout much of the Great Depression. The winds kicked up towering dust storms that began to blow east.

These gigantic clouds of dust and dirt could rise from ground level to a height of 8,000 feet. The dust storms moved as fast as 100 miles per hour and blotted out the sun, plunging daylight into darkness.

Most of the dust storms started in the southern Great Plains, especially the high plains regions of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Colorado. This swath of parched earth became known as the Dust Bowl. For people living in these hardest hit regions, depression and dust storms defined the misery of the “dirty thirties.”

Those unfortunate enough to be caught in a dust storm were temporarily choked and blinded by the swirling dirt. The storms killed cattle and birds, blanketed rivers, and suffocated fish. Dirt seeped into houses, covering everything with a thick coat of grime. Some dust clouds blew east as far as the Atlantic coast, dumping acres of dirt on Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. Altogether, dust storms displaced twice as much dirt as Americans had scooped out to build the Panama Canal.

Radio & FDR’s Fireside Chats

People listened to the radio every day, gathering around the big wooden box in the living room. Through the radio, Americans had access to newscasters, the President himself, and most often, different comedy or drama shows that carried their stories over from day to day. These short dramas allowed listeners to escape into a world more exciting than their own. The radio created a new type of community. Even strangers found common ground in discussing the lives of radio characters.

Americans also used the radio to hear directly from President Roosevelt. From March 1933 to June 1944, Roosevelt addressed the American people in some 30 speeches broadcast via radio, speaking on a variety of topics from banking to unemployment to fighting fascism in Europe. Millions of people found comfort and renewed confidence in these speeches, which became known as the “fireside chats.”

Use the Chromebook and headphones to listen to one of FDR’s fireside chats from 1935.

Entertainment offers an Affordable Distraction: Movies

Despite the excruciating economic hardship faced by nearly all of the country during the Great Depression, 60-70 million Americans still packed into theaters each week. This phenomenon forces the question: Why go to a movie during such a troubled time? What made sitting in a theater for an hour and a half worth a hard-earned 15 cents?

From gangster films to musicals to screwball comedies, Depression films took on the responsibility of reinstating the mythical American values of individualism, classlessness, and progress. Americans might have come to these films in search of escape from their difficult and hopeless lives but that isn't to say the themes and motifs of these films appeared out of reach. Hollywood, while upholding American institutions such as government and family, also created characters and plot lines that stayed within the realm of possibilities. Had Americans not believed in and related to the drama, music, comedy, heartache, and successes displayed on screen they surely would find entertainment elsewhere. Film industries recognized this consumer power and carefully evaluated the types of films people responded to. Hollywood understood the shame of standing in breadlines and the helplessness of losing a job. Musicals such as Gold Diggers of 1933, 42nd Street, and Footlight Parade directly addressed the Depression. Subsequently, this strategy by Hollywood made these three musicals the highest money making ones of the decade. No longer did films take on the idealistic outlook of the 1920's. Musicals in the 1930's gave people more realistic visions of ambition and attainment.

Hollywood musicals often reflected America's growing need and desire for escapism. In addition to magical worlds of Oz, musicals painted more familiar scenes such as Depression-stricken cities and tension filled homes. While relating to the harsh times, these settings not only capture the emotions of its audience but also manipulates them with a positive turn of events at the end. Subsequently, without asking for anything in return, musicals boosted morale and lightened the burden of their audiences.

Entertainment offers an Affordable Distraction: Superheroes

Nearly 80 years ago, the very first superheroes debuted in the dire times of the Great Depression and the early years of World War II. Their names became legend -- Superman, Batman (or, as he was then known, the Bat-Man), and Wonder Woman and they’re still enormously popular today. In the 1930s, the American Dream had become a nightmare, and superheroes provided an escapist form of entertainment that allowed the American public to go into a fantasy world where all the ills of the world were righted by larger-than-life heroes. Comic books, which cost on average a dime each, were an affordable means of entertainment during the Depression. Many of the comic heroes inhabited a world overrun by crime and hopelessness which are two themes that Americans dealt with during the depression. Batman had no super powers other than his ingenuity and drive to fight crime and injustice. In this regard, he personified the power of the average person to use "whatever it takes" to rise above the hopelessness of the times. Much like Batman used his skills to overcome obstacles, average Americans were encouraged by newly elected President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to do the same.