Life During The Great Depression Research Paper

The Great Depression was the worst economic crisis in American History. It lasted 10 years, between 1929 to 1939. It was triggered by the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and failure of banks across the country. This crash caused millions of investors to become bankrupt, which began the depressing next decade for many Americans. Failure of banks caused a lot of Americans to lose large amounts of money and gradually become bankrupt. The Great Depression came with many jobless Americans. Studies show that the unemployment rate was over 20 percent! This was the highest unemployment rate the United States had ever had. The Great Depression also forced many families to become homeless. It had two different presidents during the tragic decade. It also

Many Americans were now unemployed, and if someone was lucky enough to still have work, their schedules were usually cut down to part-time reducing the amount of income they received heavily. After 1933, the expansion of the New Deal meant that the government now intervened much more evidently in people’s daily lives, employing them and giving them aid, as well as providing new forms of social insurance. A wave of labor strikes and unionization allowed for a new way of thinking about the power of ordinary people and racial and gender divisions. During the Depression racial discrimination was very common, for people were trying to find someone to blame and take their anger out on. Minority workers were normally the first to lose jobs at a business or on a farm. Life for a minority during the Great Depression was very difficult and challenging. The unemployment rate for minorities was over 50 percent! Violence against minorities increased during the Depression, as whites competed for jobs traditionally held by minorities. Minorities were excluded from union membership, and unions influenced Congress to keep antidiscrimination requirements out of New Deal laws. Minorities typically called Roosevelt’s “New Deal” the “Raw Deal”. It may have been noticeably harder for a minority during the Depression, it was very difficult for everyone. Many families who were once eating well-cooked dinners with their families, now found themselves living on food stamps. Some families, however, were not affected by major economic deprivation during the 1930s, and even among those that were, many were able to maintain practically normal patterns of family life. Family members listened to the radio together, by the 1930s, millions of urban families owned at least one radio. They also engaged in such activities as playing Monopoly, a popular game that appeared in the mid-1930s. Married women commonly came to work outside the home for low-paying