The Trials And Tribulations Of Life During The Great Depression

The trials and tribulations of simply living during the Great Depression bonded the country together. After a decade of partying and overall leasure the nation got hit with one of the worst depressions yet. In 1929 the stock market crashed, sending many families away from their homes to try and look for work since they had no money. The Great Depression changed the country as a whole, everyday life turned into finding ways to get by and sharing what you can with your community. During that time simply age could be a liability, and living in a rural or an urban area could be the difference between how people ate and how they lived. The normal life for people changed severely after the stock market crashed, people were used to spending their

Women's radio would teach women how to stretch the little food they had by popularizing one pot meals such as chili or macaroni and cheese. Churches helped a lot also by organizing community potlucks where families would bring what they could, so they could get a cheap, fairly balanced meal. Soup kitchens were also normally run by churches and were where people would go stand in line to get soup and bread normally for free. Soup was the normal option for free food, because if they ran out adding water was a simple fix. A way communities would make their own food was thrift gardens. Thrift gardens would be accessible to anyone who contributed to the garden by planting different crops. Through 1931 to 1932 Detriots thrift garden fed over 20,000 people, so it once again depended on industry, location and luck with these things,

Living in the country during the depression meant that going hungry wasn’t really a worry since they could grow their own food. The main worry for them was not being able to pay bills, because their crops were not worth the amount they used to be. During the winter months some would resort to burning corn instead of wood because the cost was cheaper. Farmers joined together to create a strike where they would refuse to give any dairy products in hopes the prices would go up, they didn’t, (“the Great” 1). Living in the city was more about how to get food, since there were little places to get it. Since there was no way to farm, people would make the food they got last through recipes like mock apple pie where they used crackers instead of apples, (“The Great” 1). Hoovervilles were towns normally built around soup kitchens, the shacks people lived in were made of anything people could find, like cardboard or wood scraps. Another term used was hoover leather, which was when people would patch their shoes with cardboard. Kids would go to school, but would normally drop out around sixteen or seventeen to get jobs and help pay bills, (2). Many teenagers would leave home and become traveling hobos, because they felt like a burden to their families, (Konkel 4). Nomatter where people were they had similar