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The Great Depression and its impact - Effects of the Great Depression on…
The Great Depression and its impact - Effects of the Great Depression on different groups in society
The effects of the Great Depression on businesses and personal lives were devastating:
9,000 banks collapsed across the country when borrowers were unable to pay back loans on shares, homes and consumer goods
millions of Americans lost their money
The GDP declined from US$103 billion in 1929 to US$58 billion in 1932
Many were homeless as they couldn’t pay their mortgages
they set up shanty towns (nicknamed “Hoovervilles”) on the outskirts of cities
Children suffered long-term effects from poor diets and inadequate medical care
Between 1929 and 1933, industrial production was out by >50% eg. total Ford employees declined from 120,000 to <40,000, real incomes dropped by less than a third, average weekly wage in the manufacturing industry dropped from $24 to $16, and residential construction fell by 80%
Led to deterioration of quality of life, adverse social effects and emotional despair.
Workers
Many lost their homes, savings and self-respect, and were plunged into poverty and disease
Unemployment: Rose from 8.7% (1930) to 26.7% (1934); leapt from 4 million in 1930 to 14 million in 1933
Husbands who lost their jobs were often forced to depend on their wives to make ends meet
Workers who remained in employment faced low wages and the constant fear of losing their jobs
Homelessness: Shanty towns which the Americans called “Hoovervilles”, sprung up on the edge of towns
Poverty: Local government. could not provide welfare so many were reduced to begging and receiving help from charity; men jumped freight trains looking for work; soup kitchens appeared everywhere to feed the poor
At the time, there was no social security or dole in the USA
Society: Spurred growth of radical political groups amongst workers (eg communism, fascism, anarchism)
prompted by widespread hunger low standard of living and desperation
Women
Employment: With rising unemployment among male workers, wives/mothers were forced to enter the paid workforce as textile workers, domestic servants and clerks and more
married women working rose from 12% to 16% during the 1930s; by 1930, almost a quarter of the workforce was comprised of women; The Federation of Labor blamed women for taking men’s job in 1931.
Unemployment: Those in domestic services suffered because families increasingly couldn’t afford to keep them
Societal change: As breadwinners, women found new status in their families; by the end of the Depression, many women who entered the workforce stayed there
major change for American society
Shouldered the emotional burden often comforting their husbands and helping their families and neighbours with meals and accommodation
Often involved with charitable organisations
Birth rate dropped as families postponed marriage and child-bearing
Farmers
• Agricultural sector experienced recession throughout the 1920s. This continued into the Great Depression
over-production and under-consumption of low-priced farm goods
low income of farm goods
eviction from farms (sharecroppers and farm workers would also experience this)
homelessness and poverty and general decline in quality of life
Dustbowl of the Mid-west: American famers were hit by the worst drought in U.S. history from 1931 to 1935
The severe effects of the drought were made worse by the over-farming that had occurred throughout WW1 and the 1920s
African Americans
• Unemployment: African-American (AA) unemployment was twice that of white Americans
reaching in 50% in 1932; they were often fired to make way for white Americans
Last-hired, first-fired’; poorly paid jobs that were traditionally (like waiters and lift attendants) reserved for the AA were now offered to whites
Racial tensions: Race riots (1910 – 1920); The revival of the KKK whom blamed the AA for their sufferings
they performed “vigilantes” acts and avenged any African Americans whom were accused of doing wrong against a white American (eg. Murder or rape) by lynching them
lynching rose from 7 in 1929 to 24 in 1933
↳ Anti-Lynching bill was proposed but not passed by congress further demonstrating the racial discrimination that the AA received
The GD prompted and/or exacerbated damaging social trends upon the AA community Eg. illiteracy, social disorganisation, physical isolation, disenfranchisement, poverty, hunger, suicide, divorce
• Other minority populations like Native Americans suffered as badly as the African Americans