A Crossroads Resource
1. Following the prosperity of the 1920s, America entered into the Great Depression.
2. During the economic Depression laborers were dismissed from their jobs, stores closed, small businesses and farms failed, banks had no money to give their clients--therefore people had no money to buy things.
3. By 1930, four million people were out of work which doubled by the end of 1931. Before the end of 1932, there were 12 million (one out of four) able-bodied American who were unemployed.
4. Families suffered. Marriage and birth rates dropped. Families split up since fathers and even young teenage children went off to look for work. Some stood on street corners selling apples or shining shoes.
5. People lived in shanties (old beat-up cabins) and railroad cars. The homeless built shacks out of crates and scrap metal.
6. President Hoover began his term in 1929. People blamed him for not doing enough for the country. The shacks out of crates and scrap metal built by the homeless were called "Hoovervilles."
7. Charity groups and local governmental agencies tried to help by establishing breadlines and soup kitchens.
8. Windstorms in the Great Plains ("The Dust Bowl") forced farmers off the land. They traveled and were called migrant workers--farmhands who moved from farm to farm.
9. President Roosevelt was elected in 1932.
10. The Great Depression lasted for ten years and ended with the onset of World War II.