McElvaine: The Great Depression



McElvaine: The Great Depression

bottom 73=insecurity characterizes greater part of the working population.

74—businessmen turned conservative in their purchases

122---sense of fellowship and community among blue-collar workers (those still employed)

170---individuals and not statistics...

171—“Some were proud, others beaten. Some were optimistic, others had lost all hope. Some blamed themselves, others cursed businessmen, politicians, the ‘system,’or ‘the Interests.’”

172—“For those who had enjoyed at least a taste of prosperity in the 1920s, the initial blow of the Depression was crushing. The twenties had seen the traditional middle-class American values, which taught that success and failure went to those who deserved them and which stressed acquisitive individualism, spread widely among workers.”...these values were tied to their self-pride...their sense of dignity as human beings...their demands for respect from those around them...but not purely individual...they still tried to help others(McElvaine, 81, 122)...their pride tied to contributing to their society as well...

73—Ford tries to stimulate economy...some business people did care...

81-82...public reactions to Depression

81—people blamed Satan

80—well-off people were often very generous, giving to charitable and philanthropic organizations

173—some believed it was their fault...tied to their sense of self-worth...

174—people drink to ease pain...

80—widespread malnutrition...174, person discusses how it feels to not eat...

174—avoiding friends because you are a failure...you truly believe you are a failure...

175---gender roles...men shouldn’t ask for help...should be self-sufficient and free...this sense of freedom is strong...tied to their failure as a provider

176—sense of community: grocer willing to let tab go up...

176---worried about what friends would say.

177---people came to believe that it was not there fault, but still complained that they were treated as children (178)

178---WPA gives people their independence back...

179---people came to believe that government owed them a paycheck...owed them a living...they had a right to survival...not priviledge.

180---people often had to do without any luxuries or pleasures...even the simple ones

180-181...fathers are stigmatized by relief

184—shame and worry about future led to abusive behavior often or simply to total apathy

187---black unemployment at 50% by 1932

188---black skilled workers in Harlem had experienced an almost 50% drop in their wages

199---continuum between ‘”mutuality’”/communalism and ‘individualism’...most American workers fell on the side of individualism but not to the extreme part...[even businessmen did not always adhere to Social Darwinism and other extreme versions of economic individualism....this is important]...self-respect

207—42% of poor favored redistribution...64% favored some kind of redistribution

206—thought some people were greedy...had sense of values

206—seems fair that all get “some” of the pie

207—60% of poor said government should not allow person to keep more than $1million...70% of wealthy said government should leave them alone...[however, that means that significant minorities adhered to different principles, so autonomous individualism and interdependent individualism were present in both cultures]

19—farmers’ value systems are attacked...their culture and way of life threatened....

22—belief by upper-class that anyone who really tries “can get work of some kind”

20—farmers have financial problems, recession throughout 20s and 30s...life is not good...also favor progressive action

Harvey Green: The Uncertainty of Everyday Life

49--Tenant farmers always in debt...many had to work other jobs because what they make not enough to keep family fed...before and after Depression

51-52==Droughts and dust storms make life miserable for people in mid-west...southern plains

52—in 1933...grasshoppers in northern plains such as South Dakota

85---people felt shame for going on relief...they were angry that government ‘told you how to live.’

86---uncertainty of job environment even for middle-class...they were one most pressed to maintain appearances and who had bought into the American value system...but they also helped the poor...

86—take personal responsibility for all of “life’s good and bad experiences...”

Cabell Phillips: From the Crash to the Blitz

5---(1932) man commits suicide because he cannot support his family

Berger: Diary of America

583—Will Rogers (1931)...says George Washington would have disowned country...also criticizes big business and businessmen

583-584—same (1933)...says people adore Franklin Delano Roosevelt...

593-596—middle-class—Dorothy Blake—the depression only bothers her in one bit of her memoirs...the rest is dedicated to the usual stuff concerning raising a family...

Bauman: In the Eye of the Great Depression

FERA= Federal Emergency Relief Administration

34-35—reporter (1934)—deterioration of human spirit; indignities felt by jobless who had to go on doles...

35—reporter (1934) –(quote) worthy and unworthy unemployed people on the doles

36—reporter (1934)—(quote) there morale has so decayed that they are not really human beings any more...

38—New Orleans relief administrator (unknown)...”They are children really...”

45—talks about families moving in with each other to help pay rent and maintain livelihood...

45—reporter—(1934)—quote that describes above scene...

63---worthy and unworthy people on rolls==sometimes racist

63---reporter (1934) racist remark about ethnics

69—contemporary (unknown)—“I didn’t feel he was a sane man as he talked to me. He was a husky man, with lots of initiative, crazy to work...”

75—(psychiatrist) (1934)—relates bad effects on husbands who lose their jobs...their sense of pride as breadwinner’s is destroyed...

74-75—(unemployed person in reporter’s log) beautiful quote about what having to take charity has done to this unemployed person

89---reporter: agriculture? (1934)...says that Hispanics are growing their own vegetables and foods

116—small-town business man (1934) “Wouldn’t it be a little better to make relief a little less adequate and therefore less attractive?”

116, 131—farmer in South Dakota—(1933)...”We don’t want any dole. All we want is a chance to carry ourselves through the winter so we’ll be able to become self-supporting next year if we have half a chance.”

117—“Rural hamlets and farmsteads faced especially grinding poverty and social disintegration during the Great Depression.”

128—North Dakota farmer to a relief official—(November, 1933)—“Everything I own I have on my back...he went on to state that he had no underwear...reporter...his shoes were so far gone that I wondered how he kept them on his feet...”

129—(Nebraska county)---while county administrator was hard-working, nice and cared about plight of poor, his boss did not...”

South

140—families in the South were mired in even direr straits than those in Midwest and Northwest...South had country’s highest rate of illiteracy and highest birth rate...

157—(1933) Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge—people on relief were loafers or bums... who could “...live on five dollars a month.”

157—(1934) (in Hickok—146) Georgia relief worker and farmer...”We could put a thousand more men to work on CWA and keep them there right straight through the summer and all next winter, and there’d still be no shortage of farm labor in this county.”

160—Southern businessmen complained that New Deal programs were creating a labor shortage that undermined their business

161—because of oversupply of labor, many farmers and businesses in deep South mistreated their workers...as one reporter (Lorena Hickok) notes...”Then--and only then—will the situation [improve] where half-starved whites and blacks struggle in competition for less to eat then my dog gets at home, for the privilege of living in huts that are less comfortable than his kennel.” (1934)

157—according to reporter (1933)....most businessmen in Georgia and most farm owners accepted the CWA and other New Deal programs.

166-168---(reporter) and other quotes concerning blacks/racism in the South

170—situation is bad in South Carolina and Florida...relief program barely scratches the surface...even when relief money would provide for a balanced diet, people still were malnourished because they stuck to a diet that lacked in vitamins and minerals...quote from reporter

West

175—“The West, America’s newest region, had the highest standard of living in the world.

175—Alburquerque, NM lawyer—good guy (1934)—“And if society...can’t give a man a job, then the Government, representing all the people, must do it—a decent job at a living wage

190—a wife and mother (1934)—nobody seems to have any sense of security anymore. If your husband’s got a job, you wonder how long he’s going to keep it. People seem to worry so much more than they used to. Sometimes I look at my children—and I just wonder (recorded by Lorena Hickok).

Northwest

179--Lorena Hickok –reporter—“South Dakota farmers who ‘were clawing mildewed Russian thistle out of the stacks they had cut for their cattle and making it into soup.”

Hickok: One Third of a Nation—letters from Lorena Hickok

44--(Oct. 1933)—(New York City)...”The Job consists of trying to feed, clothe, shelter and provide medical care for 1,250,000 men, women, and children wholly dependent on public funds for their subsistence.”

45—“They are, all thrown together in a vast pit of human misery...”

56—(1933)—“Their stock, thin and rangy, is trying to find a few mouthfuls of food on land so bare that the winds pick-up the topsoil and blow it about like the sand.”

56---“hailed out..” “no crop at all...”

146—good landowners (Jan. 1934)—landowners not upset about CWA wage rates.

(1/16/34 in GA)...speaking on Negroes...great quote and very racist...152...151 Hickok says that fear of CWA is driven by racism...

157—more evidence of racism...Simon Legree is from Uncle Tom’s Cabin...

168--- (1934) a good businessman

168—employers mistreating and overworking their employees

167---signs that Depression didn’t affect all...a good tourist year

212---(April 1934)...300 displaced tenant farmers in New Orleans...”Please buy us a tent ma’am, we can’t find no house...”

220—story of one person in Texas who went from riches to rags...pride wouldn’t let anyone help him

221---negroes as children...(1934) Texas as it is in Bauman....

334-335—(Sept. 1934)...Kansas...good times, people have amnesia...Kansas State fair looks like prosperous...336—stores are busier than ever....

346...11/21/1934...urban...Baltimore...(quote) from worker showing extent of depression...says can only give free lunches to a few children

Ringel: America as Americans See It

Anderson:

12—“droughts throughout the great agricultural sections of the country...” but still a surplus of food which meant farmers were not getting much for their crops...(1931 or 1932)

Held

229-234==(31-32) whimsical look at college students which gives the impression that no Depression is roaring around them...

Hoar: The Great Depression

Saul Wellman

157-158==urban, Detroit...1930s...over 1,250,000 workers marched that year...he talks about one where speakers tell assembly it is not their fault...they deserve a job, they deserve the right to live...

Eliot: Recollections of the New Deal

Xiii (Galbraith)...”1930s were...years of angry labor disputes...”

3...25% of work force unemployed...33% in some cities...

9...Eliot went to Harvard Law School (wealthy)

11-12...they did social work for the thrills...they worked hard...

24—businessmen benefited from New Deal

23—many wealthy hated Roosevelt

33—even wealthy realized what was happening...banks closed in many states during March 1933...March 6, President shut them down..

33...sense that middle-class and upper-class empathized with those who were out of work or who were otherwise poor

52—labor leaders look forward to working with government because of section 7a in NRA...

MCElvaine...quote

252—businessman—“Why shouldn’t they take half of my income from me...”

258-259—Wagner Bill

McElvaine: Down and Out in the Great Depression

53—Some of the middle-class found themselves unemployed or with greatly reduced incomes...one of greatest fears was that of losing the family home

Quotes:

54-55—middle-class woman asks Roosevelt for a job for her hubby so they won’t lose their home.

57-58—poor/working class—talks of fear of pain and suffering she goes through in seeing her children walk around with “half enough to eat.”

62—poor woman—sends Roosevelt ring in return for clothes...does not want charity...wants to repay all that she gets...but is in dire shape with baby coming

93—evidence of racism

135—poor (1935)—evidence of person being treated badly...

157—not a quote—“desperation was a common reaction to the Depression...”

164—poor/lower middle-class...they have no coal, no clothes...worry about mother and herself...shows how bad it could be

169—unknown---shows the shame that people could face

170---poor/unemployed...has no work, no clothes...is suffering immensely

175—not quote—many people blamed others, cynicism ran high...

179—unknown...criticism of “higher ups.”

224--poor farmer in TN (1936)...quote shows plight of poor farmers

225--unemployed in ct...(1936)...speaks about losing his job...”it is awful!”

Aflred Kazin: Starting Out in the Thirties

39--1935: from the left about mother: “She was a great sufferer, life had let her down....”

32-33...1935...life goes on as normal for many people...

Chambers: Witness

91, 184---father (middle-class)...1923...his life had been sad

Parida A. Rinfret: From My Perspective (September 25, 2000)



(author was 6 at the time of 1929—had just recently immigrated to U.S. from Canada) We Americans (the vast, vast majority of us) were scared stiff. We didn't know which end was up and had no idea of where we were going and where it would all end! To this day I am amazed that we did not have a revolution.

William Stott

61, 170—social documentary is not science...people too emotionally involved, they have motives and biases/propaganda

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