Great Depression Dbq Essay

The United States changed more during the great depression epoch than during the Second World War, though both were characterized by great human suffering and in addition to their resultant life-altering impacts, both positive and negative depending on ones’ perspectives and ones’ side on these defining eons.

The Great Depression which ran from 1929 – 1935 was a period of protracted worldwide economic downturn characterized by depressed stock markets, very high unemployment, a shrinking tax base, and in the USA, response saw an expanded role in government’s participation in the lives of its citizens through the creation of the New Deal by the government of President Franklin Roosevelt. Under the New Deal gambit, such entities as the Securities

This provided unemployment compensation and was also the way of the government to assist the disabled, otherwise known as the “deserving poor”. Following this act, came another by the name of the Wagner Act also in 1935. This act legitimized labor unions and sanctioned the legality to form labor unions. It also protected one from getting fired for joining a labor union, and stated that companies must engage in collective bargaining – capital must negotiate with labor. Individuals were happy to get jobs and recoup their self-worth. “No, I don’t see the Depression as an ennobling experience. Survivors are still ridin’ with the ghost – the ghost of those days when things came hard”. This reminiscence was a stark outpouring of the hardships encountered during The Great Depression, an era that hopefully would be in the rearview mirror.

Nothing changed too much for the black man. He was sued to being in depression as it was. There was nothing for him to really live for. On the other hand, in World War 2 there was an impact for black men. “The Negro was born in depression. It didn’t mean too much to him, The Great American Depression, as you call it. There was no such thing. The best he could be is a janitor or a porter or shoeshine boy”. Black men during this era didn’t have too much freedom in picking their own job, whereas in World War 2 black men’s lives changed because they now had the right to work, vote,

Many lost their live during WW2, many returned with disabilities and families were fractured. However, there were many positives that were reaped from the war. The war led to an economic boom, fueled by the weapons industry which called upon black people and women to join the workforce and fill in the employment gaps left by the conscripts, and signaled the birth of a new middle class joining the ranks of the suburbs hitherto a preserve for the very wealthy. The combination of a dearth of skills and pressure from the black community brought some positive changes as summed up by Terkel in Good War: it was not noblesse oblige that brought forth Executive Order 8802, establishing the Fair Employment Practicing Committee. Whilst women ceded their jobs to the returning soldiers, the gender of the American workforce was changed forever, hence the war has been dubbed the good war. It was a fairly short duration compared with the Great Depression but as observed above, legislation to regulate financial markets, housing standards and social welfare among others was enacted preventing the markets from going