Great Depression Photo Essay

Impact on Families
LIVING CONDITIONS DECLINED AS FAMILIES CROWDED INTO SMALL APARTMENTS WITH EXTENDED FAMILY WOMEN LOST SOME OF THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ADVANCES THEY HAD WON IN THE EARLY 20S. MARRIED WOMEN FIRED FROM THEIR JOBS IN LARGE NUMBERS IN ORDER TO KEEP MEN EMPLOYED

Men who had lost their job felt ashamed and considered themselves failures because they could not provide for their families. Here a group of men is shown waiting in a bread/soup line.

Hooverville: The popular name for a shanty town during the Great Depression. The word "Hooverville" derives from the name of the President at the beginning of the Depression. People used the name because they were frustrated and disappointed with his involvement in the relief effort for the Depression

DUST BOWL: 1931-1940

WAS CAUSED BY SEVERE DROUGHT AND OVEUSE OF FARM LAND BY FARMERS. LOW FARM PRICES ANDDUST BOWL CAUSED 60% OF FARMERS TO LOSE THEIR FARMS

Here you can see the dust storms have covered not just the fields, but the wagon and car as well. (South Dakota)

Impact on Health

UNEMPLOYMENT AND FEAR OF LOSING JOB CAUSED GREAT ANXIETY MANY AMERICAN SUFFER FROM STARVATION LARGE NUMBERS OF AMERICANS BECAME EXTREMELY DEPRESSED HUGE INCREASE IN SUICIDES

People living in miserable poverty, Oklahoma

DISCRIMINATION INCREASES

Philipinos cutting lettuce, Salinas, California, 1935. Photographer: Dorothea Lange. In order to maximize their ability to exploit farm workers, California employers recruited from China, Japan, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Mexico, the American south, and Europe.

Mexicans waiting to be repatriated in San Antonio INCREASED COMPETITION FOR JOBS CAUSED HOSTILITIES BETWEEN AMERICANS, SPECIALLY MINORITIES HISPANIC AND ASIAN AMERICANS IN THE WEST NOT ONLY LOST THEIR JOBS, BUT THEIR COUNTRIES. EVEN NATIVE BORN AMERICANS WERE RETURNED TO THEIR ANCESTORS HOME COUNTRY

 BLACK UNEMPLOYMENT SOARED TO ABOUT 56% (WHITE UNEMPLOYMENT PEAKED AT 25%) WHITE AMERICANS PUBLICLY DECLARED THAT BLACKS HAD NO RIGHT TO JOBS WHILE WHITE PEOPLE WERE UNEMPLOYED LYNCHINGS IN SOUTH INCREASE TO ONE OF THE HIGHEST LEVELS IN HISTORY

The song Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday, was written by Abel Meeropol in 1937. He wrote the poem after he saw a photograph of two men being lynched (Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith)