Responses to the Needs Created by the Great Depression

Organized Protests

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             There were many organized protests made as a response to the needs created by the depression. A lot of the population reacted to the crisis without protest, but there were several angered Americans that thought differently and lashed out. Many unemployed and frustrated workers took matters into their own hands. The Great Depression saw some of the most volatile strikes and protest movements in the city's history. Unions were often supported by the newly organized Congress of Industrial Organizations (Goldfield, Abbott, Anderson, Argersinger, Argersinger, Barney, Weird, 2004). By organizing the efforts there was a common ground for the upset workforce. Workers were united across race, ethnicity, status, state, etc. all throughout the United States. Protests were not only organized by present workers in the workplace, but also by the unemployed. Protests ranged from small desperate gestures like stealing food and coal to more dramatic things. For example, a Louisiana women seized a train to call attention to the needs of their families; or in New Jersey, in the "bloodless battle of Pleasantville," one hundred women held the city council hostage to demand assistance (Goldfield et. al, 2004). There were communists and socialists and other radical groups that held both formal and informal protests. The communists were the ones who led the unemployment marches. Socialists built an organization called the Baltimore's People's Unemployment League, which had over twelve thousand members. Groups such as this one provided protection and assistance to its members (Goldfield et al., 2004). There were also 'rural protests' that aren't talked about much. The communists were the ones who usually organized these. There was one union known as the Croppers' and Farm Workers' who helped out black laborers to demand better conditions and treatment. Another group was the Farmers' Holiday Association which stopped the shipment of produce to urban markets, hoping to drive up prices for their own profit (Goldfield et al., 2004). Around the country protests and riots were very popular to see. The country was in mayhem and was confused on what to do. They felt as if they weren't getting the help needed and lashed out in hope of getting help. 
Works Cited:
Goldfield, D., Abbott, C., Anderson, V. D., Argersinger, J. A., Argersinger, P. H., Barney, W. L., Weir, R.
            M. (2004). The American Journey: A history of the United States. New Jersey: Pearson
            Education, Inc.

• by Amy S.

Soup Kitchens
"I'm spending my nights at the flop-house,
I'm spending my days on the street,
I'm looking for work, and I find none,
I wish I had something to eat.
Soup, soup, they give me a bowl
of soup, soup, soup. They give
me a bowl of soup."
Depression-era song (1930s) (Katz, et al)

            "'Prosperity is just around the corner,' is something Hoover said quite often" (http://wikihistoria.wikispaces.com/Soup+Kitchens). Many people were doubtful but he tried to reassure them that times would get better. Finding ways to help when times got tough was not an easy task and because of the Great Depression, "there was resurgence in soup kitchens" (Katz, et al). So many people had lost everything during the Great Depression. They found themselves living with others in make-shift shelters called "shantytowns" and their only option at eating was to wait in long lines at the soup kitchens for nothing more than cheap soup and stale bread (Tompkins). Many churches and missionaries had soup kitchens. Al Capone, trying to clean up the image of gangsters, even sponsored a soup kitchen.
            "Charities and state and local governments" were deemed the people/organizations that should provide the needed assistance "even though they didn't have the money to deal with a problem" of this magnitude (Tompkins). Due to the large expense of getting goods to town, a lot of farmers had tons of grain just going to waste. This angered many Americans. The Hoover Administration, in an attempt to help out the farmers, bought a large amount of the grain but had no intentions of using it to help feed the starving. Eventually, Congress passed a bill that required them to release the grain to feed the hungry (Walker).

Elderly Woman Eating Soup from http://wikihistoria.wikispaces.com/file/view/Soup_Kitchens_2.jpg/53925190/Soup_Kitchens_2.jpg

Works Cited:

Katz, Solomon H., and Gale Cengage. "Encyclopedia of Food & Culture." ENotes - Literature Study 
            Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Web. 12 Oct. 2010.
Tompkins, Mary Lan. "The Great Depression - A Look at Significant Events." Finance Globe: Personal 
            Financial Resources. 07 Nov. 2008. Web. 12 Oct. 2010.
Walker, Kathleen. "Management of Hunger in the United States." Case Western Reserve University - 
            One of the Nation's Top Universities and the Best College in Ohio. Web. 12 Oct. 2010.
            http://wikihistoria.wikispaces.com/file/view/Soup_Kitchens_2.jpg/53925190/Soup_Kitchens_2.jpg

• by Misty L.

Shelter for the Homeless During the Great Depression

http://www.photosfan.com/images/depression-31.jpg

             The number of homeless grew enormously during the Great Depression. Emergency lodgings provided by both public and private agencies went from one million between October 1930 and September 1931 to 4.3 million between 1933 and 1934. In the late 1920s there were already increasing numbers of homeless people in community shelters. When the Depression hit, many of the newly unemployed headed to cities, overwhelming municipal lodging houses and private agencies looking for jobs. In 1931, for example, the number of homeless using shelters in Minneapolis increased fourfold over the previous year. Local and regional response was mixed, but certain patterns emerged. Cities could be more or less lenient in enforcing settlement laws, which mandated prior residency for relief and the return of potential public charges to their state of legal residence. In practice, though, few cities offered more than a night's shelter and a meal for nonresidents. In the Deep South, transients could be arrested and sent to work on chain gangs, and the few cities that had municipal shelters for the local poor excluded African Americans from them. Chicago expanded separate services for the homeless of both races, and a 1931 protest of the homeless in New York City led to improvements at the municipal lodging house. Still, much of the additional shelter was provided by private organizations like the Salvation Army. Religious missions provided shelter regardless of residency status, though they required that the homeless attend religious services. Small charities started soup kitchens and breadlines for anyone who was hungry. Though single women were frequently absent from the lines and rarely represented, they made up an increasing, though still small, percentage of the conservatively estimated 1.25 million unattached homeless tallied in a 1933 census of 765 cities. The standard social work policy was to send transient women back to the residence of their families or husbands, so some homeless women avoided urban aid agencies. The major policy change in this era shifted primary responsibility for handling this social concern from the private to the public sector, especially the federal government. In May 1933, President Roosevelt established the Federal Transient Service (FTS) as part of the Federal Emergency Relief Act. FTS was designed to provide aid for homeless people who were ineligible for local relief because they had not lived in any given state for more than the year required for settlement status. FTS eventually established programs in every state except Vermont. The service allotted the most money to California, which, with 4.7 percent of the nation's population, handled fourteen percent of the nation's transients. FTS ran shelters that provided food, clothing, and medical care to residents, as well as work training and education programs to some who stayed for long periods. FTS also started camps in rural areas where homeless men were assigned public work and conservation projects, such as flood control and park improvement. Many camps and centers were partly self-governed and staffed by residents. FTS also paid for rooms in boarding houses or YMCAs to accommodate transient women, and the agency allotted apartments and relief payments to families; as Harry Hopkins, director of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, wrote, "shelter care for families was taboo." FTS left the issue of integration and equality up to local practice. Many urban FTS centers were segregated, and in the South separate black shelters were, according to a 1934 FTS report, "not quite equal to those provided for the whites."
 

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1642.html

            In the 1930s, Hoovervilles (shantytowns) formed coast to coast in cities of the United States. Some families were fortunate enough to stay with friends and family members that hadn't been evicted yet, but homeless men, women and children were forced to take up residence in shacks as a result of the Great Depression. Many of the shantytowns that sprung up all over the nation during the Depression were facetiously called Hoovervilles because so many people at the time blamed President Herbert Hoover for letting the nation slide into the Great Depression. One of the largest Hoovervilles lay in the center of New York's Central Park.
Works Cited:
http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/from_war_to_war/thegreatdepression.html
Crouse, Joan M. The Homeless Transient in the Great Depression: New York State, 1929–1941. 1986.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1642.html
Golden, Stephanie. The Women Outside: Meanings and Myths of Homelessness. 1992.
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/20th-hoovervilles.html

• by Robert M.

Gold Standard

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.html

             The Gold Standard started around the time of the Great Depression and is basically an economic principle which the government supports its currency with gold money. The first country to adopt the system of the Gold Standard was Britain and then the United States. Weaknesses of the Gold Standard began during war and times of economic problems. Another major event that happened during the Gold Standard was when England, which was the first country to institute the Gold Standard under Sir Isaac Newton, went from silver money to gold. Around the Great Depression time legislation would make major changes to the Gold Standard to keep it going, by producing more gold. Today we have what's left behind from the Gold Standard, the gold dollar. It is neat to bring something back from time so that the new generation can see what kind of money their ancestors had during the Great Depression!
Works Cited:
James Hamilton. "The gold standard and the Great Depression." Econbrowser. 12 December, 2005.  
            http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.html . 04 October, 2010

• by Ashley R.

The New Deal Reform

            During the 1930s the United States experienced its worst depression in history due to the Wall Street Crash. In 1932 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered the White House dealing with a nation experiencing social, economic, and financial problems. In his famous first Hundred Days in office, Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced several different acts that turned out to be the foundation of the New Deal.

Nedgrace.wordpress.com

            The New Deal significantly transformed the economy and politics of the United States. It focused on three aspects: relief, recovery and reform which came to be known as the "3 Rs". Relief was very important because it helped "millions of Americans unable to find work in an economy that was still badly broken four years into the Great Depression, that might have literally starved to death if not for the government checks they earned by working for new agencies" (Shmoop beta). The Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration were some of the new agencies. The Civilian Conservation Corps "employed jobless single men between the ages of 18 and 25…nearly 3 million men took part in the scheme which ran from 1933 to 1941" (History Learning Site). The Works Progress Administration coordinated all public works schemes and employed 3.8 million men from 1935 to 1941. Both of these agencies made a huge impact in the relief of the unemployed and it favored the recovery of the economy. The recovery of the nation came in Roosevelt's third term when the demands that came with World War II finally restored the country to full employment. All the reforms accomplished by the New Deal provided the basis for a postwar economic boost that later came to be known as "the Golden Age".

Newdeal75.org

             When Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated he said, "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people", that is why his reform came to be known as The New Deal. Roosevelt forever changed the expectations that American's had for their presidents; he also injected a lot of self-esteem to the nation. Although the New Deal provided many things for the nation, it did not end the Depression. Even though it did not end the Depression it still contributed greatly to bring up our nation.
Works Cited:
History Learning Site. 2000. 20 September 2010 .
Shmoop beta. 20 September 2010 .

• By Diana M.