22-2 Hardship and Suffering during the Great Depression
EQ: What was so important about environmental damage during the 1930s?
Subquestions:
a. How did the land change before and during the 1930s? Did anyone farm profitably?
b. Did the government fall short of its responsibility to manage change? Or was that responsibility not clear at the time?
c. What steps could've been taken to avert disaster?
d. What were the most extreme dimensions of the crisis--in terms of degree or duration?
a. How did the land change before and during the 1930s? Did anyone farm profitably?
ReplyDeleteOne of the first things Danzer says is "Homelessness and hunger stalked the land" on page 650. Many people were evicted from their homes and lived in the streets, parks, or sewer pipes. Shantytowns appeared, towns consisting of just shacks. Soup kitchens and bread lines crowded with people were everywhere. I remember having this book when I was younger about a little girl in the Depression whose father was too ashamed to go to the soup kitchen, no matter how hungry and poor the family was. This is like the "Personal Voice" section the chapter has on page 651 quoting a man watching the destroyed, prideless men with flat and blank looks. The farmland changed as well. The famous Dust Bowl was caused by drought, overproduction of crops, and winds. Dust traveled for hundreds of miles. Some who migrated west found work as farm hands, but others were left workless.
a. How did the land change before and during the 1930s? Did anyone farm profitably?
ReplyDeleteThe depression devastated peoples lives tremendously. It brought hardship to many americans. Many americans were evicted from their own homes and had to live on the streets or in parks. Shantytowns were made which were little towns consisting largely of shacks. Their was a vast amount of starvation through out the country. Soup kitchens were made for those who were homeless. The Dust bowl that began in the early 1930's destroyed the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl was a serious drought that wreaked the land. Soil turned to dust and big dark clouds of it could be seen from miles away. This caused a lot of the land to change for farmers. Tractors tried to break up the grasslands and plant new acres of farmland but it only "exhausted the land through overproduction of crops." (page 651)
http://www.thegreatdepressioncauses.com/dust-bowl.html
Did the government fall short of its responsibility to manage change? Or was that responsibility not clear at the time?
ReplyDeleteThe government did fall short of their responsibility. During the Great Depression there was no federal system of great relief-cash payments or food provided by the government to the poor. (Danzer 653) New York had the highest payment of $2.39 to families, but that wasn't enough. The U.S. was in a huge economic debt and it would have been hard at the time for the government to get the funds to rebuild a nation, however I think the government could have tried harder in supporting citizens. Families helped other families, so its important that the government try too. States cut budgets for healthcare and schools were closed. These two cuts were drastic.
One picture I found has a man holding a poster saying..." We want to be citizens not transients."
This picture is saying that the unemployed are tired of being homeless and want to have the rights and privileges of a free man.
http://s4.hubimg.com/u/2592879_f260.jpg
What was so important about environmental damage in the 1930's?
ReplyDeleteThe environmental damages that took place during the 1930's were devastating. With so much already happening like unemployment and debt people probably weren't expecting a natural disaster to take place. The drought began in the early 1930's and caused damage to the Great Plains. There were few trees and grass that could hold the soil down and the dust began to move. It became known as the Dust Bowl and it traveled hundreds of miles. It even reached as far as the East Coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. Thousands of farmers were forced to leave their land behind. They packed up their families and moved West following Route 66 to California. Many people known as Okies (Oklahomans) became farm hands but many still were without work, Families always wanted a sense of unity so they always stayed together even when money was tight. Economic and environmental damages and difficulties put pressure on families and they ended up falling apart. The Dust Bowl was a huge disaster that just added more chaos to the Great Depression.
page: 651/652
http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/210784
Here is a diary entry about the Dust Bowl by a woman from Kansas named Mabel Holmes.
Did the government fall short of its responsibility to manage change? Or was that responsibility not clear at the time?
ReplyDeleteThe responsibility was clear at the time, when the citizens of a country are in crisis, it is the government's job to solve the problems of this crisis. The government fell short of its responsibility in many ways. The large amounts of shantytowns, large lines at soup kitchens, and overall poor conditions should have been proof enough that the government should step in. But it didn't. The one thing the government could have done, was provide some form of relief to the people. During the Depression, "there was no federal system of direct relief-cash payments or food provided by the government to the poor." (Danzer 653) The government did nothing to help those in need. It neglected its core responsibility, to protect the welfare of the people. At the FDR Memorial in Washington D.C, there is a sculpture of men standing in a bread line. The looks on their faces tell the story of the hardships of this time:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Fdr-memorial.jpg
How did the land change before and during the 1930s? Did anyone farm profitably?
ReplyDeleteOne way of thinking how the land changed in expecialy cities was the people who lost their homes and living on the streets. About 2 mill. men wandered the country homeless during the Depression (p. 653) People romed around, also living in large shantyowns which were little towns of shacks, which makes the land look totally run down. Farmers lost land becuase they could not pay their debts. Between 1929 and 1932 about 400,000 farms were lost due to mortgages (p.651) Along with this, the farm lands changed when the Dust Bowl came in swiping out and making the farm land unable to be used. Mostely from North DAkota down to TExas was the main areas wehre this was affected. In a Library Truman article (http://library.truman.edu/scpublications/chariton%20collector/Spring%201986/Farming%20in%20the%20Great%20Depression.pdf) it exsplains everything the farmers went threw with their land and trying to maintain it. Christopher Loew tells that in 1934 when the dust bowl came around, the farm land was very difficult to maintaine, which also did not help that none of the farmers had any money.
What steps could have been used to advert the disaster?
ReplyDeleteThe Great Depression was a horrible time period that affected millions of Americans. Danzer describes, “Many were evicted from their homes and ended up living on the streets. Every day the urban poor could be see scrounging for food. Farmers continues to lose their land when they couldn’t pay their debts.” (650-651). However, all of this could have possibly been adverted. The first and most obvious way would be to invest in the stock market better. Being more responsible and secure in their investments would have shrunk the crash to affect less people. Controlling the decrease in demand for farming goods by limiting the amount of crops planted would have kept crops at a steady price. This would have helped out the rural population. “Buying on credit caused widespread debt and was a leading cause for the Depression.” (http://econc10.bu.edu/Ec341_money/Papers/Carroll_paper.htm) A limit on credit spending would have saved people form over spending and falling into debt. While it is impossible to tell, if all these steps had been taking one of the worst parts of American history might have been avoided.
SQd: What were the most extreme dimensions of the crisis--in terms of degree or duration?
ReplyDeleteThere was a swath of land in the Midwest reaching from North Dakota to Texas called the “Dust Bowl”. The farmers there had overworked the land leaving it very DRY. When wind hit it HUGE, devastating dust storms happened. This time period in the 1930’s was also called the Dust Bowl (Danzer, p650). Frankly I think this was one of the most extreme dimensions of the whole crisis because it destroyed buildings, crops, people and pretty much anything exposed to it.
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/dbimages/dust2.gif
http://www.weru.ksu.edu/new_weru/multimedia/dustbowl/big/theb1366.jpg
http://argenteditions.com/images/large/fsa/fsa-dust-bowl-farm-32396-700.jpg
http://www.lvarv.org/el-civics/DustBowl%20WebQuest/Digging.jpg
Here are some pictures of the Dust Bowl.