# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Migration Out of the Plains during the Depression

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alvin and Delbert Apetz knew farmers who couldn't make payments on their land so the bank took over their farm. Many once-proud farmers packed up their families and moved to California hoping to find work as day laborers on huge farms.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Great Depression did not affect everyone the same way. Many rich people felt no impact at all, and were oblivious to the suffering of others. Up to forty percent of the country never faced real hardship during those

years. But most were touched by it in some way. By the time of Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration in 1933, the unemployment rate hovered close to twenty-five percent. Fluctuating during the 1930s, it never fell below 14.3% until 1941.
The Depression changed the family in dramatic ways. Many couples delayed marriage - the divorce rate dropped sharply (it was too expensive to pay the legal fees and support two households); and birth rates dropped below the replacement level for the first time in American history. Families suffered a dramatic loss of income during Herbert Hoover's term in office, dropping 35% in those four years to $15M. This put a great deal of stress on families. Some reacted by pulling together, making due with what they had, and turning to family and friends for help. Only after exhausting all alternatives would they reluctantly look to the government for help. Other families did not fare as well, and ended up failing apart.

Traditional roles within the family changed during the 1930s. Men finding themselves out of work now had to rely on their wives and children in some cases to help make ends meet. Many did not take this loss of power as the primary decision maker and breadwinner very well. Many stopped looking for work, paralyzed by their bleak chances and lack of self-respect. Some became so frustrated that they just walked out on their families completely. A 1940 survey revealed that 1.5 million married women had been abandoned by their husbands.

On the other hand, women found their status enhanced by their new roles. Left with little choice, they went

against the historic opposition to married women working outside the home to help support their families. Black women especially found it easier to obtain work than their husbands, working as domestic servants, clerks, textiles workers and other occupations. This employment increased their status and power in the home, gaining them a new voice in domestic decisions.
Most minorities, though, benefited little from FDR's New Deal programs. Minorities, long considered the "last hired, first fired" before the depression, were the first ones hurt by the job layoffs, In order to keep the Democratic Party together and pass New Deal legislation through a Southern-dominated Congress, most of the programs targeted unemployed white males. Black males were either shut out completely or had to settle for separate and lower pay scales. A shortage of jobs in the Southwest led to the illegal deportation of 400,000 Mexican-Americans so that whites could get more jobs or government relief. Native Americans, though, received their own New Deal, bringing economic relief and some political recognition to this most beleaguered group.

References:
Allen, Frederick Lewis, Since Yesterday: The 1930's in America (1940); Leuchtenburg, William, Franklin D. Roosevelt and The New Deal (1963).

How To Cite This Article:
"America in the Great War," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2000).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Great Depression did not affect everyone the same way. Many rich people felt no impact at all, and were oblivious to the suffering of others. Up to forty percent of the country never faced real hardship during those years. But most were touched by it in some way.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Great Depression facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Great Depression

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get information, facts, and pictures about Great Depression at Encyclopedia.com. Make research projects and school reports about Great Depression easy with credible articles from our FREE, online encyclopedia and dictionary.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The National Archives and Record Administration released for the first time yesterday the l argest collection of digital information from the 1940 Census.

The treasure trove of data provides a snapshot of life during the Great Depression.

During the 1930s, the Dust Bowl pushed many poverty-stricken Americans west in search of work and more productive farmlands.

Population declined by more than 25 percent in some rural counties of Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. Clark County, Nevada, for example, nearly doubled in population to 16,000 people.

census.gov

California on the hand, grew substantially between 1930 and 1940. Los Angeles county gained more than half a million people - the largest increase in population of any county in that decade.

Advertisement

Slate's Matthew Yglesias points out that population shifts during the Great Depression were more drastic than today's economic recession, in part because the standards of living were lower and people were more willing to move, as it was a matter of life and death:
Bad as the Depression was, it would have been even worse had people not had the opportunity to [move]. And by the same token, our current economic downturn would be less severe if people living in economically weak areas were more willing to drop everything and move to places where the job prospects are better.
SEE ALSO: Where America's Millionaires Live >

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
MAP OF THE DAY: What The Mass Migration Of The 1930s Looked Like

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The National Archives and Record Administration released for the first time yesterday the l argest collection of digital information from the 1940 Census. The treasure trove of data provides a snapshot of life during the Great Depression. During the 1930s, the Dust Bowl pushed many poverty-stricken Americans west in search of work and more productive farmlands.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Great Depression (1929–1939) was an economic shock that affected most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States.[1] The economic contagion began around September 1929 and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of 24 October (Black Thursday). It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century.[2]