The most devastating storm of all time that effected everyone from 1931-1939 was the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was a series of dust storms caused by over-farming. Due to the Dust storms it destroyed all farming lands.
Due to farms being buried by dirt during the Dust Bowl migrant workers and tenant farmers moved to California. Migrant workers are workers that traveled from place to place harvesting crops. Tenant farmers are people who live on another man's land, and gets half the harvest, but has to pay rent. The migrant and tenant workers had high expectations for California that there would be a high quanity amount of jobs to choose from, but what they didn't realize was that there were hundreds of thousands of other workers traveling to California too. The jobs in California were exactly the opposite of their expectations, very low pay, which resulted in harsh living conditions. Today about 1.3 million people move state to state for agricultural jobs.
Black Thursday was the 1st day of the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that started in 1929. The Great Depression was far more than just a stock market crash. During the 1920’s American firms earned record amount of profit but spent most of the profit on expansion. Also, corporate profits, skyrocketed, wages dramatically increased which widened the distribution of wealth and resulted in limited economic growth. There were also fundamental structural weaknesses in the American economic system. Banks in the 1920’s operated without guarantee to their customers which caused panic during rough times. With few regulations the bank loaned out money to those who were taking risks in stocks.
The Great Depression caused banks to fail, unemployment to rise up to 25%, and an increase of homeless people.
During the 8 years of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency he instituted a series of experimental projects and programs, known as the New Deal, that aimed to stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering.
Examples of how poor people were during the Great Depression:
I remember my dad had an old white milk cow that we just adored, but she was getting old and he said we can't afford to feed her. I think it was because of a drought, there wasn't much feed and so he did sell to the government, I don't know something like twenty-five head of cattle or something. Literally, they dug a big pit, and they dropped the cattle up there and shot them.
When I graduated in 1932—that was just right during the depression—Mother and Dad really had to dig deep to try and get enough money together so I could have a new dress for graduation.
