Life During The Great Depression

All types of people were affected by the Great Depression. After the stock market crash in 1929, the country changed drastically. Many people lost their jobs because of this downturn in the economy. During the Great Depression practically every person had to adjust to a different way of living than what they were used to. This paper explores how life changed for children, teenagers, African-Americans, farmers, women, and the middle class.

Historical Background

Many factors led up to the Great Depression. Among these are: buying on margin, buying on credit, supply and demand, the stock market crash, and drought. With the popularity of the stock market in the 1920s, people would buy stocks on margin, which meant that
This group accounted for 15 to 20 percent of Americans at this time. The collapse of the stock market and the closing of more than 5,000 banks mostly affected the middle class. The professional men that worked at these jobs now had to deal with a loss of income and unemployment. They now found themselves having a hard time supporting their families. Many of these people could no longer consider themselves in the middle class after the depression took its toll on them. Most people who had worked their way through college found themselves unable to find a job during this time. Their degrees were in no way useful to them. Among the professions that had few job openings were bankers, architects, agriculturalists, educators, and salesmen. A study of fifty-four colleges conducted by the American College Personnel Association showed that 21, 974 women and men holding degrees from these colleges were without jobs. This proves what a dire state the middle class was in because those who would make up the middle class, those with higher educations, had a difficult time of finding a job. The middle class was in danger of becoming politically and socially insignificant because of the numbers of people who were descending from the middle class into the lower
In the political world, the economic distress led to the election of Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932. He introduced many changes in the structure of the American economy and implemented what was called the New Deal that began many public-works projects to decrease unemployment. The Tennessee Valley Authority and the Public Works Administration are examples of these public works projects. One agency that was started in response to what happened with the stock market was the Securities Exchange Commission. This agency enforced new security laws that made it necessary that if businesses wanted to sell securities or stocks in their business, the owners had to be truthful with potential investors about their companies and warn them about the risks involved in investing. Another agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, was created in 1933 to help farmers increase their income by reducing supply to boost prices. These are just some of the measures taken by Roosevelt to try to get the country out of depression. However, mass unemployment and economic stagnation continued. About 15 percent of the work force were still unemployed in 1939. When World War II broke out in the same year, this number went down rapidly. Workers were needed in factories to produce armaments and munitions. The end to the Great Depression came after the United States entered the war in