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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A characterization of a dichotomy between an urban-industrial North and a rural-plantation South before civil war would exaggerate actual conditions. But the southern city like Savannah was neither nonurban nor antiurban, which resembled northern city, especially, New York City in their commercial functions and social complexity . Savannah businesspeople did, however, depend on northern cities, especially New York City’s capital and markets. (Chudacoff, pg78, 6th Ed)

Comparing with New York City, Savannah suffered more damage from the civil war. The union army’s blockade ports, the breakdown of transportation system as a result of military activity, and wartime inflation exacerbated patterns of urban hardship, especially food shortages. All of these slowed down the development of economic in Savannah. But New York City’s economic was rapid develop in the 1850s (Chudacoff, pg80, 6th Ed).

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