Year: 2011

03/13/11

The times are hard…

A "Hooverville" home, located in a shanty town during the late 20s early 30's.
A bread line during the Great Depression.

The first photo shows a house made of salvaged boards and planks that poor Americans who lost everything during the Depression lived in.  Many families lost all of their money in the stock market and were left homeless, so they moved into parks, under bridges and into the woods where they formed little communities.  These towns became known as Hooverville’s, because many people blamed the President (Herbert Hoover) for the economic collapse.  These communities began popping up all over the nation as more and more of its citizens fell upon desperate times.  The second photo shows a bread line in a major city.  In an attempt to provide some relief, the government provided food to the most needy of its citizens.  Bread, stew, soup and water were the most common commodities handed out to starving men women and children.  It was not uncommon to see thousands of people waiting on one of these lines hoping to get a few scraps of food to get them through the day, because they did not know when their next meal might be.

03/13/11

Hard Times Are Hoovering Over Us

This image has been taken from the Presidential Library & Museum of Herbert Hoover. Taken by Underwood and Underwood. This image depicts children insulting the president for letting nation slip into depression

Image taken in CA 1930, by Bettmann. Hundreds to thousands of people waiting on line for some free food to survive the great depression.

The great depression was very sad and difficult time in American history. After the New York stock market crashed in October 1929, thousands and thousands of people lost their jobs and their life savings. Thousands of people were forced to live on the street as they were unable to afford shelter. Many of these people took to living in small shanty towns, Hooverville, that grouped hundreds of homeless people. In the first image, a family insults the president Herbert Hoover by using his last name to describe a situation at the time. Plenty of blame has been placed on president Hoover as he was said to have let the nation slide into depression. Many other terms were coined during this time such as the hoover blanket (a newspaper), hoover flag (turned out pockets) and hoover wagon ( a automobile pulled by a horse). The second image, directly represented many people on the breadline that offered free food to the poor and homeless. Many individuals could not afford to buy their own food let alone afford shelter during the great depression.

03/12/11

Enough is Enough!

During the Great Depression, unemployment was high. Many employers tried to get as much work as possible from their employees for the lowest possible wage. Workers were upset with the speedup of assembly lines, working conditions and the lack of job security. Seeking strength in unity, they formed unions. Automobile workers organized the U.A.W. (United Automobile Workers of America) in 1935. General Motors would not recognize the U.A.W. as the workers’ bargaining representative. Hearing rumors that G.M. was moving work to factories where the union was not as strong, workers in Flint began a sit-down strike on December 30, 1936. The sit-down was an effective way to strike. When workers walked off the job and picketed a plant, management could bring in new workers to break the strike. If the workers stayed in the plant, management could not replace them with other workers. This photograph shows the broken windows at General Motors’ Flint Fisher Body Plant during the Flint sit-down strike of 1936-37.

World War I veterans block the steps of the Capital during the Bonus March, July 5, 1932 (Underwood and Underwood). In the summer of 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, World War I veterans seeking early payment of a bonus scheduled for 1945 assembled in Washington to pressure Congress and the White House. Hoover resisted the demand for an early bonus. Veterans benefits took up 25% of the 1932 federal budget. Even so, as the Bonus Expeditionary Force swelled to 60,000 men, the president secretly ordered that its members be given tents, cots, army rations and medical care.

In July, the Senate rejected the bonus 62 to 18. Most of the protesters went home, aided by Hoover’s offer of free passage on the rails. Ten thousand remained behind, among them a hard core of Communists and other organizers. On the morning of July 28, forty protesters tried to reclaim an evacuated building in downtown Washington scheduled for demolition. The city’s police chief, Pellham Glassford, sympathetic to the marchers, was knocked down by a brick. Glassford’s assistant suffered a fractured skull. When rushed by a crowd, two other policemen opened fire. Two of the marchers were killed.

These two pictures are images that show that the people of the nation had tolerated enough. Not enough was being done to help the economy and the government wasn’t quick enough. In the first image, the workers are taking matter into their own hands by protesting the big factories that were treating them unfairly. The second picture depicts the same concept, but consisted of the war veterans who wanted to collect their bonus checks that were owed to them. In both sceneries, those in power took advantage of them.

03/12/11

Dead End Jobs!

The first photograph shows that men in the United States were unable to get aid from the businesses in their own town. The sign is an indication that the businesses themselves were unable to take care of their own employees so men who were looking for work had to try to look elsewhere. The second photograph shows young children holding signs asking why their fathers were unable to get a job. The two photographs are significant to showing the effects of the Great Depression because it shows the severity of the situation people were in. No one was able to help anyone out, even those who were supposed to help others find jobs could not help. There was a dead end road for everyone.

03/12/11

We need jobs!

Unemployed men vying for jobs at the American Legion Employment Bureau in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.


Selling apples, Jacksonville, Texas. October, 1939. Photographer: Russell Lee. Many tried apple-selling to avoid the shame of panhandling. In New York City, there were as many as 6,000 apple sellers on the street.

One of most significant characteristics of the Great Depression is the lack of jobs. The stock market crash in 1929 triggered the mass depression that last for several years. Many people were out of a job.

Picture one depicts a crowd of people fighting to get their names registered.Picture 2 shows a lady with a cart selling apples.
Compared to the crowd, this lady seems to be more independent, tough and have more control of her life.
Although picture 1 shows a more striking image of how desperate people were during the hard-time.

03/12/11

Schedule for 3/14 and 3/16

I am cancelling class Monday, 3/14.  Class will be held 3/16, although it may be a guest professor.  You are still responsible for the assignments posted to the blog.  If there is a guest, he will be aware of your readings and assignment, so please complete them on time.  The assignment for 3/14 has already been posted.  By Monday evening at the latest I will post the assignment for 3/16.  I should definitely be back by our class on 3/21.  Please do not hesitate to contact me anytime by email with questions.

03/11/11

The Great Depression in America

People sleeping on the streets using newspapers as a blanket and as a mattress

The Great Depression began in 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s and early 1940s. There was a sharp decline in profits, personal incomes and tax revenues. Businesses were failing rapidly and many people became unemployed and homeless. The two images shown above portray how the Great Depression greatly impacted their lifestyle. The first image have multiple pictures combined, it shows people of different backgrounds besieged with the same problem. The second image shows homeless people sleeping on the streets. This resulted from high unemployment rates, causing many people have no source of income to support themselves.

03/11/11

Great Depression

A Normal Stock market, Just what he wanted. Wish denied. This Cartoon is fro 1929.
Artist: William Kemp Starrett, appeared in Life Magazine.

The Stock Market crash in New York of 1929.

The Great Depression started in October 1929 with the stock market crash in New York.
The first image shows how people wanted the stock market to go back to normal. Like shown on the picture, they wanted it as a gift just like how Santa Claus would be able to give them that. The second picture is more of a realistic form of the stock market crash. All the people in front of the Stock Market wanting to take back their money. These two pictures show how the Stock Market Crash was the very cause of the Great Depression.

03/11/11

The Celebrities of 1920s

The Great Depression

The United States hit the so called  “great era” in the 1920s, Americans suddenly took an interest in the stock market. Many ordinary people believed the stock market was the place to seek for wealth. For almost eight years the stock value has been raising, stocks represented opportunities and dreams. Rich stock investor like Jesse Livermore and Charles Mitchell persuaded many  middle and lower classes to buy and sell stocks. Banker, broker and speculators were celebrities of the day, they represented the wealth of the economy. It was not until 1929 until the when the crash of stock market that led the nation into a tremendous downfall.

03/10/11

The Great Depression: Breadline and World’s Highest Standard of Living

Morris Huberland - Bread Line. late 1930s. Gelatin silver print: 6¾ x 7¼ in.
1937 photo by Margaret Bourke-White – Breadline during Louisville Flood.

The breadlines during the Great Depression are some of the most symbolic characteristics of the Great Depression. The breadlines were unusually long and crowded, despite of the fact that the agency were providing little bread to each individuals. Although most of people on the breadline were capable laborers, the lack of employment opportunities made them unable to make any production and forced them to wait on a crowded line for most of the day-time. It was quite tragic, since many capable workers were forced to accept the little ration provided by the government. Certain city folks found it unbearable and relocated themselves to rural areas to farm, in hope of using their labor to produce actual food.

The two images above are illustrations of the long, crowded breadlines during the Great Depression. The first picture depicts the breadline on a cold day, in which many people wear wearing heavy jackets and hiding their hands in the pockets. They have no other choice other than waiting there. They could not produce food in the city (or not fast enough, since growing vegetation in the backyard cannot guarantee a stable food source),  so they had no choice but to accept their only stable source of food. On the other hand, the second picture portrays the irony of America’s economics collapse. Just several years ago, the Americans were celebrating the lavish lifestyle and liberal behaviors of the Roaring Twenties; however, by the time of the depression, Americans no longer had the money and leisure to enjoy their freedom and the world’s highest standard of living. Nothing remained but the ad board, which ironically depicted their faded prosperity during the age of wide-scale poverty.

03/10/11

Meyer v. Nebraska

 

 After World War I, Americans were not in favor of all German related things. Language was a major principal focus of legislation at the state and local level. The performance of German music at symphony concerts and the meetings of German-American civic associations were things that Americans find objectionable. Some states and towns even banned the use of German language. On April 9, 1919, Nebraska enacted a statute called Siman Act, a restrictionrelating to the teaching of foreign languages in the state of Nebraska”.

 On May 25, 1920, Robert T. Meyer, when an instructor in Zion Parochial School in Hampton, Nebraska taught the subject of reading in the German language to 10-year-old Raymond Parpart, a fourth-grader. The school charged Meyer with violation the Siman Act. He was found guilty in the Nebraska Supreme Court, he then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. As protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. In a 7 to 2 decision, the Court held that it was indeed a violation of the Due Process Clause (an violation of people’s liberty). This was one of the very first cases in which the Court found that people had liberty rights not specifically listed in the Constitution.

03/10/11

Not Dissimilar To Our MIstakes…

I think this picture pretty much speaks for itself - an image we came a little bit too close to in the past couple of years...

I’m posting here a very famous picture from The Wall Street Journal of what looks like a stock broker or investor who lost it all the day after the crash of October 29, 1929. This picture, to me, represents a hard fall very similar to the one that many of us felt just a few short years ago with the failure and bailing out of companies like Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, AIG, and countless monstrous financial institutions. I’ve als0 posted a video that may be a little bit on the lengthly side, and much of it may sound rather elementary and pretty redundant to many of you; but I think that the person who made it simplifies very clearly the true causes of The Great Depression, puts into perspective just how close we actually came after the financial meltdown of 2008 to another one, and how we actually made MANY of the same mistakes this time around:

Video: What Caused The Great Depression

-C. Salama

03/10/11

Hooverville

Hooverwille a place filled with poor people who are forced to live in shacks because of the great depression.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfylLnHjcu0

During the great depression things got really difficult for people. Million of people started to lose their jobs and everyone who suffered. Since many became jobless soup kitchens popped up everywhere in order to feed the people as much as they can. The people started to also build their own houses out of cardboard and wood called shacks, and later on became known as Hooverville. Everyone was affected by the Great Depression especially the children. The children had to stop going to school to help provide for their family.

03/10/11

Will we ever learn?

This photograph (taken in 1933) depicts a shantytown in Seattle known as Hooverville. Shantytowns sprang up all over America housing thousands of unemployed families.

This is a wonderful video produced by PBS in the Cosmopolis series. It summarizes the speculation and activities of stock brokers before Black Tuesday as well as the aftereffects. PBS used great archival materials, including photographs, audio, and video from 1929.

The photograph depicts the dire consequences of American (humans in general) greed. The smoke in the background symbolizes the hell that the persons in the foreground will face. Furthermore the black & white nature of the photograph adds a feeling of lost hope, capturing this moment in America’s history perfectly. Contrarily, the video describes a major cause of the great depression and has tons of outstanding material however it fails to portray the chaos and solemn reality of the Great Depression due to it’s focus on videos and pictures of the mass, thus not allowing the viewer to sympathize with an individual. However it does get the point across, I just wonder if the federal reserve and banking institutions ever heard of this mysterious event that occurred in 1929…

03/10/11

Limiting My Inventory

The Washington Naval Conference was held in Washington D.C. for four months discussing and making treaties following the World War I. One of the most important treaties made was the Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty. This treaty limited the arms of five countries: United States, Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy. This treaty is to prevent mass production of arms following the World War I. The limitations reflected on the tonnage of ships and aircraft carriers each country can have. This treaty was made in hopes of preventing a second world war.

03/10/11

I Ain’t “Lying”, But I’m Still Roaring

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/SclJ94h2oyQ” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]

The roaring twenties became a time where Americans broke away from their old traditions. People starting becoming more involved in doing things that haven’t been done. Such things are people spending more and more of their money on leisure activities such as vacations, movies and sporting events. Radios owners exponentially increased and served as their daily entertainment resource. With that, the radio also became a great asset to spreading information. With this sudden upscale of the quality of living for Americans, the roaring twenties ended with the Great Depression in 1929.

03/9/11

Corruption in the Government

Business and government were interconnected. They were helping each other.  Government officials took bride from big business and in return, they give big business the promise of  government “hands off” policy. Such corruption made business once again unregulated, many progressive era ideology were fading away and lassie faire was back in action. Most corruption occurred under president Harding when his cabinets were accepting bribes to help business leaders. Such corruption continued when president Coolidge took office. from this image, we can see that the government can not do anything to the big business people and seems like they are the one in control of the congress instead of the government officials. Such corruption eventually will hurt the economy in the long run.

03/9/11

Charlie Chaplin, Silent revolution and mass production in 1920s

Charlie Chaplin, a silent movies actor, had become an icon in 20s with the emergence of movie theaters as a form of mass entertainment. In 1929 weekly attendance of movie theaters had reached 80 million people according to E. Foner, which was double the amount in 1922. Popularity of movies along with proliferation of radio stations throughout the country fueled by the additional leisure time and income, people gained as a result of industrial progress, had brought about the celebrity culture in the form known to us today. Not accidentally, it was the 1927th when the tradition to install stars with “limbprints” of actors into the sidewalks by theaters in Hollywood took place. Among the very first ten stars were the star of Charlie Chaplin (source: http://www.filmsite.org/20sintro.html). The flourishing movie industry in 20s was a part of a larger trend of quickly developing mass production and mass consumption during the booming economic growth of the decade, a trend so large that it had completely changed the culture of the society.

Video tribute to Charlie Chaplin with lots of scenes from his movies and some techno)

03/9/11

Cultural Differences

In the 1920’s Fundamentalism was spreading around the U.S.  Protestants were becoming threatened by the Jewish and Catholic Immigration to the U.S.  many protestants became members of the Klu Klux Klan.  The KKK was once again formed in Atlanta in 1915.  By the mid 1920’s the KKK spread to the North and the West.  It was clear that Protestants were trying to eliminate any other religion and keep the U.S. as a Protestant majority.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CTG58jIlNA

03/9/11

Sacco & Vanzetti

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3SuTTcj2u8

Nicola Sacco  and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. After a controversial trial and a series of appeals, the two Italian immigrants were executed on August 23, 1927.

There is a highly politicized dispute over their guilt or innocence, as well as whether or not the trials were fair. Very little evidence linked them to this crime. The dispute focuses on small details and contradictory evidence. As a result, historians have not reached a consensus.