Themes in American History

(Picture from the Franklin D. Roosevelt  library, courtesy of the National Archieves and Records Administration.)

Just as prosperity was visible during 1920s in the city through construction and rapid growth of industrialization, the economic crisis in twentieth century brought the great depression  in the U.S.; causing through the Stock market crash of 1929 until 1939, and unemployment that resulted poverty throughout the nation. The working class people and upper class people were widely affected and failed them in terms of raising their life standard and led them into the depression. It was the period of both unemployment and poverty, and increased government involvement in the economy.The most serious problem was an unemployment that heavily fell on unskilled, the young, and color people. In Chudacoff’s book, he states that between 1929 and 1933, both Mayors of Detroit and New York City preferred spending available money and borrow for relief even by reducing other municipal services of the city. This decreased the expenditure on parks and recreation departments in 795 cities and towns by 50 percent. Likewise Chicago was one of the hardest hit cities in American by the Great Depression because of the city dependence on manufacturing and crisis that existed the stock market crash. An unemployment in Chicago was near 50 percent after the four years of crash which led thousands of people to move and gather for social protest.

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n the center of the Great Depression many families tried desperately to pull themselves together and rise above the hardship that was taking place in the city during the 1930’s. This period brought a lot of shame, embarrassment, and abandonment to many families as many people were forced to stand on bread lines and dumpster dive for food. The crisis affected everyone and there were no jobs to be had at this time. Big banks went out of business, the gap between the rich and the poor was shrinking, and resources were being depleted.

On the other side of the country, a different type of depression was taking place during the 1930’s. In many areas of Texas and surrounding states, a huge dust storm had covered a vast portion  of the residential areas. Crops belonging to farmers were ruined by mountains of dust covering them rendering them useless. Many families were affected by the storm and were forced to leave their homes to avoid starvation and malnutrition.

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