Memoirs_of_the_Great_Depression

Memoirs of the Great Depression Deborah Kinsey D’Youville College The economic pressures of the Great Depression led to years of poverty and devastation for the American people. Unemployment and underemployment led to an impoverished nation whose people faced hopelessness and despair. Urban and rural families, men and women, and people of various ethnic backgrounds were depleted of sources of income necessary to sustain livelihood. Alan Brinkley’s The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People shows causes of the Great Depression and describes efforts set forth by the government to bring the nation out of its crisis. The era’s leaders implemented many programs in attempt to rebuild the economy and provide relief to the American people. These programs were beneficial in helping people, but often the outcomes took time. Due to this slow progress, frustration felt by Americans ensued. Studs Terkel’s Hard Times depicts the essence of the emotions and the struggles endured by Americans through personal accounts of tribulations. The Depression caused despair to many farmers and their families. Just as urban people were losing their homes to foreclosures, farmers were losing their land and livestock to the banks because they were unable to pay their mortgages. Harry Terrell was interviewed by Terkel and described what it was like for farmers during the Depression. Terrell recalls his own family members losing land and having to put machinery and livestock up as collateral for a loan. Unfortunately, these practices were not uncommon for the time. According to Terrell, “The country was getting up in arms about taking a man’s property away from him. It was his livelihood. When you took a man’s horses and his plow away, you denied him food, you just convicted his family to starvation. It was just that real” (Terkel, 215). Terrell’s story conveys the “catch 22” for farmers of this era. The banks were taking their land and the farmers were giving up their livestock. But without the livestock, the land was useless. Left without options, many farmers felt the need for violence as a last resort. Several of the farmers interviewed recalled the attempted hanging of a judge for foreclosing on farms. Frustration driven, the farmers took action against a man they felt was a cause of their downfall. Terrell acknowledges programs administered by Roosevelt’s New Deal undoubtedly saved the farming population. However, he confesses to feeling like there was slow progress with regard to restorative outcomes. While progress from the economic state of the Depression was slow for farmers, most appreciated the reforms set forth by Roosevelt. Emil Loriks, a well informed politician and farmer of the time, was able to provide insight on the overall feelings of farmers toward President Roosevelt. The Rural Electricfication Administration sought out to provide electricity to farmers in efforts to enhance productivity. Loriks reflects on a visit from Roosevelt proclaiming, “If Roosevelt hadn’t come in in ’32, we’d a’ been in real trouble…He told us how Sweden had developed their power resources for the benefit of the people-the low rates of electricity and so forth” (Terkel, 228). Since electricity could be resourced cheaply via water, it would increase farming productivity at a lower cost. The Great Depression certainly did not discriminate against any culture when it came to being unemployed. Sadly, many people outside the Caucasian race had to submissively give up their jobs to white counterparts who felt they had first pick with regard to employment. Brinkley informs the audience, “Japanese-American college graduates often found themselves working in family fruit stands. For those who found jobs in the industrial or service economy, employment was precarious; like blacks and Hispanics, Asians often lost jobs to white Americans desperate for work” (Brinkley, 612). Kiko Konagamitsu, a Japanese-American, illustrated in Terkel’s interview the strong cultural traditions of Japanese-Americans. Konagamitsu recalls being a young boy who was disappointed to have helped out a friend of his father without being paid for his duties. He was scolded by his father for expecting payment in return for helping a friend. According to Konagamitsu, this time honored tradition of helping your neighbor is currently becoming obsolete. He implies that Japanese-Americans now have a more American way of thinking. Konagamitsu also recounts that several Japanese-Americans at the time of the Great Depression were able to earn college degrees by their families doing without. Unfortunately, despite those sacrifices, individuals with doctoral degrees only options for work were fruit stands. Many Americans traveled across the country in hopes to find any available employment. Ed Paulsen is a classic example to illustrate young American men weren’t just seeking a handout. Paulsen traveled miles in search of work by way of freight trains. Young men of this time had the agility and the physiques to handle any work passed their way; the work just wasn’t available or didn’t last very long. Paulsen proclaimed, “We didn’t know how to join a soup line. We-my two brothers and I- didn’t see ourselves that way. We had middle-class ideas without a middle-class income” (Terkel, 30). Paulsen emphasized his pride in regards to handouts and his physical stature that would have enabled him to conform to any type of labor; the labor just wasn’t plentiful enough. Since Paulsen was a young man during this era and pretty much self educated, he didn’t have much of a nuance for politics or Roosevelt’s NRA program. Despite his lack of knowledge, Paulsen and his brothers continued their journey and sporadic work. He does however mention the employment handed down from relief efforts that gave his town a mixed opinion on Roosevelt and his administration. Some of the New Deal Programs appointed these young men to government jobs. While some store owners weren’t enthusiastic about the relief efforts, they were happy to cash the checks earned by the young men working those jobs. These checks stimulated their own local economy and allowed many of the naysayers’ businesses to remain open. During the aftermath of the Depression, many people resorted to violence as a result of their economical frustrations. Eileen Barth was a social worker who remembers having to cope with underemployment in her own field of work. And part of her job when she did have work was to cope with individuals and their despair due to lack of employment. Barth recollects on a tragic event in which a young man shot to death a case worker, clerical worker and her supervisor, his mother, and then himself because he wasn’t given a job handed out by the CWA. These events prove how some were just unable to mentally cope with the devastation of the times. African Americans had previously faced years of oppression and struggle; the Great Depression did not make their times any easier. Terkel’s interview with Horace Cayton depicts a first-hand account of African Americans who had not long before been abolished as slaves. Similar to the immediate times of being freed from slavery, blacks during the Depression relied upon church as an institution to see them through difficult times. Cayton tells of a young white girl who had believed that a particular black pastor was God. The Pastor called his churches Heavens and Cayton claimed he fed more people during the Depression than anyone. Also notable, Cayton reflects back on the feelings between whites and blacks during the economic hardship. While there may have still been racial inequality, everyone was equal when it came to poverty. He recalled feeling there were as many whites on relief programs as there were blacks. During the late 1930’s, effects of the Depression improved, but there was still economic stress. Pauline Kael was a college student at that time and remembered how the Depression caused the destruction of so many families. Men were unable to cope with not being able to support their family units. As a result, many of them committed suicide. Kael was an advocate for raising minimum wage at her school, and had a difficult time understanding the nonchalance of her elite peers. At a time when Kael and some of her friends ate candy bars for a meal, the rich students dressed in expensive clothing were insensitive with regard to the plight of the poorer students. Kael to still harbors malice toward the elite social class; not out of jealousy for their possessions, but due to their seemingly ignorant attitude of economic hardships. The economic pressures of the Depression often led to extreme measures to be taken by collegiate students. Robert Gard tells how students were willing to do close to anything that would earn money. According to Gard, “there was a biological company that would pay a penny apiece for cockroaches. They needed these in research, I guess. Some students went cockroach hunting every night” (Terkel, 348). Gard looked back on the times as a learning experience. Coming from farmland, Gard was unaware of many of the social concerns of the Great Depression until he entered college. Despite the adversities of the time, Gard was able to recall the Depression as a difficult but glorious time. For the families of the Great Depression that weren’t destroyed by suicide or abandonment from their fathers, they were often faced with difficult ordeals that tested their endurance. Cesar Chavez was a Mexican-American interviewed by Terkel whose story shed light on what it was like not only to be a child during this time, but to be a Mexican. As a very small child, Chavez and his family were forced to move from their home. Chavez sadly recalls moving around from state to state; he and his siblings were not even able to get a proper education because they were never in one place long enough. They traveled by car so that their father could work wherever work was available. Those seemed to be the struggles of most people; however, Chavez and his family had to deal with discrimination along with financial hardships. The family was good enough to go in to local towns to earn pennies shining shoes, but the locals would not serve them in their restaurants when they were finished because they were Mexican. Signs dotted the highways that read, “whites only”, and Chavez regrettably claims he will always remember the feelings of prejudice as a child. In conclusion, the Great Depression impacted everyone in America. People from this era surely have memories of years of waiting and hoping for relief. The effects of the Depression have forever branded the survivors with memories of poverty and despair. This era forced Roosevelt and his administration to act quickly, even though it took years to rebuild the country back to a productive industrial and agricultural state. All were impacted in some way, whether positive or negative, by the reforms and relief projects implemented by President Roosevelt and his New Deal.