Americans Face Hard Times

The Big Idea

• Across the country, Americans worked hard to survive the Great Depression.

Main Ideas

• A long drought destroyed farms in the Great Plains. This area became known as the Dust Bowl.

• Families all over the United States went through difficult times.

• Music, movies, and art helped people feel better during the Depression.

• The New Deal created changes in American society that lasted for a long time.

Key Terms and People

• Dust Bowl: A time in the 1930s when there was almost no rain in the Great Plains. It caused giant dust storms and ruined farms.

• Mary McLeod Bethune: A teacher and leader who worked in President Roosevelt’s government. She worked hard for the rights of African Americans.

• John Steinbeck: A famous writer. His book, The Grapes of Wrath, tells the story of families struggling during the Great Depression.

• Woody Guthrie: A singer who wrote songs about the hard lives of regular people during the Dust Bowl.

If YOU were there…

• Imagine this scenario:

  • You own a farm in the Great Plains. Your family lives and works there.

  • For years, you haven't made much money from your crops. You had to borrow a lot of money to keep the farm going.

  • Now, a terrible drought has started. Nothing will grow.

  • Do you stay and hope for rain, or do you leave to find a better life somewhere else?

The Dust Bowl

• Life was hard for farmers even before the Great Depression started. In the 1920s, they weren't making much money.

• When the Great Depression hit, many farmers lost their land.

• In the early 1930s, a drought hit the Great Plains. It lasted almost 10 years and killed crops from North Dakota to Texas.

• Because the ground was so dry, the top layer of soil blew away in the wind.

• Huge dust storms turned the area into the Dust Bowl.

  • A boy from Texas said: "The storms looked like rolling black smoke. We had to wear masks and leave the lights on all day."

  • A woman from Kansas said: "Dust covered everything. Our faces were as dirty as if we had rolled in the mud."

• Many farmers lost their homes because they couldn't pay their bills.

• New Deal programs tried to help by giving farmers loans.

• Scientists taught farmers new ways to protect the soil, like planting grass and trees.

• Around 2.5 \text{ million} people left the Dust Bowl. Many moved to California to find work, but jobs were hard to find there, too.

Historical Sources

• Lawrence Svobida, a farmer, said he felt terrible when his crops died:

  • "When I saw my crops were gone, I felt like I couldn't go on. It felt like bad luck I couldn't beat."

Hard Times

• The Great Depression hurt families everywhere. Many people lost their jobs. Sometimes families had to split up so people could go find work in other cities.

• Many children had to quit school to work and help their families buy food.

• One boy wrote in his diary in 1932:

  • "Slept in a paper box. Found a good breakfast… Had to pay 20 cents for supper. It's raining."

• Minority groups had an even harder time.

  • Mexican Americans found it hard to get jobs. Many were forced to leave the country, even though some were U.S. citizens.

Document-Based Investigation

• Migrant Mother:

  • Photographer: Dorothea Lange took pictures of the poor. Her most famous photo shows a mother and her children who had almost nothing.

  • The family had to eat frozen peas and birds the children caught to stay alive.

Discrimination During the Great Depression

• African Americans faced a lot of unfair treatment. Many lost their jobs to white workers.

• By 1932, about 50\% of people in Harlem (a Black neighborhood in New York) were out of work.

• One man said, "They didn't hire me because of the color of my skin."

• Still, some New Deal programs helped. President Roosevelt hired Black leaders, like Mary McLeod Bethune, to advise him. This group was called the "Black Cabinet."

• Eleanor Roosevelt (the President's wife) fought for equal rights. When a Black singer named Marian Anderson wasn't allowed to sing at a certain hall, Eleanor helped her perform at the Lincoln Memorial. About 75,000 people came to listen.

Depression-Era Culture

• In 1935, a program called the WPA started giving jobs to artists, musicians, and writers.

• The WPA director said artists "need to eat just like other people."

• These artists made over 2,500 murals and 17,000 statues for the public.

• They also traveled to record old folk songs and stories so they wouldn't be forgotten.

• Going to the Movies:

  • Many people went to the movies in the 1930s. It was a way to forget about their problems for a little while.

• Books and Music:

  • John Steinbeck wrote about the Dust Bowl in his books.

  • Woody Guthrie sang about how hard life was for workers.

  • Swing music became very popular because it was upbeat and helped people feel happy. Famous bandleaders included Duke Ellington and Count Basie.

  • People also listened to stories on the radio every week to relax.

Quick Facts: Causes and Effects of the New Deal

Causes

• The stock market crashed.

• The banks ran out of money.

• Millions of people had no jobs.

• Farmers were in trouble.

• Many people were very poor.

Effects

• The government became much bigger.

• Programs like Social Security and the FDIC were created.

• People felt more hopeful, but the New Deal did not end the Great Depression by itself.

Effects of the New Deal

• People still argue about if the New Deal worked. Some say it didn't end the Depression. They say only World War II ended the hard times.

• Others say it saved the country during a scary time.

• Today, we still use programs from the New Deal, like Social Security (which helps older people) and the FDIC (which protects money in the bank).

Summary and Preview

• The New Deal helped many people, but the Great Depression didn't fully end until the United States started fighting in World War II. We will learn about that in the next lesson.