The Great Depression In America

564 Words3 Pages

The great depression was a rough time for many Americans. The country suffered as a whole but everyone reacted differently to the crisis. The businesses, people and government all handed the Great Depression in different ways. Large businesses and corporations did not help too much to help when the depression hit. The cotton factories in specific were known as terrible places. They over worked and underpaid their staff who desperately needed money. Farmers were also heavily hit by this depression. By 1920 almost all farmers went into debt by buying machinery and land. They borrowed money to buy this machinery thinking it would help them produce goods faster and make more money however, that didn’t really happen. By 1930 over production caused …show more content…

No one had any money and depended on the factories and businesses that they worked for to raise the wages, which most of the time, they did not. Due to the fact that people were desperate for money, stealing became a frequent thing. People were hungry and needing food so they stole it from other more wealthy people and businesses. Although stealing was common, it was often times overlooked by the enforcement authorities. A state that was really struggling in particular was Arkansas. They got hit with the drought very harshly. During the crisis ¼ of the banks across America were closed. Red Cross was eventually called into help by the government. They did as much as they could but eventually the money was frozen. As the Red Cross began to be less and less help, people started facing starvation. Although the Red Cross could only help for a period of time, they were the most effective on helping America get back on its …show more content…

At the time America was being run by President Hoover. When the depression started to get out of hand Hoover turned to the nation’s leading agency for disaster relief, the Red Cross. In most of the country, the Red Cross worked on a plantation system. The republicans also had a large amount to do with the great depression. The newspaper companies were all run by republicans. This had an effect on the public knowledge of the great depression. The republicans only advertised in the newspaper about the Great Depression when they had good news. They would never advertise how bad it was getting or when it went downhill. They had to make it look like the government was trying to