The Great Depression: A Short Story Of A House

There are many examples during The Great Depression that showed the best and the worst in people while they went through hard times. Many people struggled with finding jobs, being fed, and taking care of their families and themselves. Some good things happened as well, the moment they heard they have been hired all you would see is a big smile on their face or when they they have a piece of bread in front of them which in their eyes was a feast.

The fresh morning air was cool against my face. Father had been gone for a while now, he had been called by his work for some “serious business.” As my sister Aliah, and I played in the pond by our 2 story house, we heard a faint muttering of Father’s pick-up.

The journal article begins by introducing an African American couple who resided in Russellville, Kentucky. James Wright held an occupation as a corn cutter while his wife Gladys worked as a cook in a white home. The time span of their journey occurred at the beginning of the great depression all the way through World War II. Seeking better employment opportunities, James traveled to Louisville. Although, his first couple trips were in vain. His resilience and determination eventually lead to a job working for International Harvester. During an era of many trials and tribulations, James found a way to support himself and his family by migrating from a rural to an urban area. By sharing this anecdote the author establishes a mood of hardship

Cecchetti, Stephen G. "Understanding the Great Depression: Lessons for Current Policy ." Monetary Economics (1997): 1-26.

People had suffered during the Great Depression and there was lessons learned from this historic event. In both sources “Remembering the Great Depression” and “FDR’s First Inaugural Address” provide the evidence of the lessons from the Great Depression. I think the lessons from these sources is that there can happiness and comfort, even during trying times.

If this story had been told from a first person point of view, the reader my not have gotten this in depth of a description of the setting. Without the reader understanding that the house was boarded up and abandoned, to the point where it seems

Setting: Takes place in an orphanage of the streets of Chicago 1932 (The Great Depression)

During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the

The Great Depression, however inevitable, took the world by surprise when the stock market crashed in 1929. At first people did not fully understand the state of the economy, they could not wrap their heads around the transition from popping champagne bottles to eating bread crumbs for dinner. People were expecting a quick fix to the problem, assuming their lives to go back to normal after a few months, tragically underestimating the situation America was in. As a result, no one was prepared to properly combat the extreme shortage of food, jobs, and money in the years to come.

During the Great Depression and between 1926 and 1933, housewives setup self-help groups to aid their locals in the community who were greatly affected by the Depression because they were no longer able to afford basic necessities- food, clothes, and shelter. The housewives played was a step up from traditional gender roles. They no longer passive, waiting for the men to take care of it, and instead were proactive leaders who worked side by side with men. They took leadership while organizing strikes, barter exchanges, and demanding what they wanted from businesses and the government. This showed others that women are no longer the traditional stereotype, where their only duty was to stay at home and cook, clean, and take care of the kids, and rather be leaders outside the house.

‘The hardships of the Great Depression in Australia were not shared equally.’ (Anderson et. al.,2012)

The great depression all started with the stock market crash of 1928. The president at the time was herbert hoover who promised to keep peace. He ended up winning 444 electoral votes to his opposing opponent who only had 87 electoral votes (Notes). After the stock market crashed banks started to fail and had no money to give to people. Nobody had money to pay anyone so unemployment roared all the way to 23% from 3%.

The world had faced two main economic problems. The first one was the Great Depression in the early of 20th Century. The second was the recent international financial crisis in 2008. The United States and Europe suffered severely for a long time from the great depression. The great depression was a great step and changed completely the economic policy making and the economic thoughts. It was not only an economic situation bit it was also miserable making, made people more attention and aggressive until they might lose their lives. All the society was frightened from losing money, work and stable. In America the housing market was the main factor of the great depression. A crisis of liquidity appeared in the banks forming a credit crunch. This period was influenced by over extended stock market shortage of water in the south and over trusting. The American government put down some regulations to control the productions which were essential for the war.

There were many primary causes for The Great Depression, Unequal distribution of money to the economy,

“personal assertion of existential meaning in a universe of potential cosmic meaninglessness” (Mast, 246). In the adventure films and Westerns, heroes are willing to challenge authority for their personal beliefs and feelings. They take actions based on individual beliefs, definitions of right and wrong, and the urge to complete their personal goals and dreams. The helpless antiheroes in screwball comedies present the situation during the Great Depression from another aspect. They cannot make choices themselves because of others’ intervention, and unfortunate things just happen to them. The denial of humanness is one feature of antiheroes. Powerlessness of antiheroes in the ridiculous world definitely reflects the desperate situation faced by the Americans during the Great Depression.