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The food people were forced to eat to survive. This included weeds, onions, and violet top turnips. 

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The food people were forced to eat to survive. This included weeds, onions, and violet top turnips. 

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Pantoum of the Great Depression

Our lives avoided tragedy

Simply by going on and on,

Without end and with little apparent meaning.

Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.

Simply by going on and on

We managed. No need for the heroic.

Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.

I don't remember all the particulars.

We managed. No need for the heroic.

There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.

I don't remember all the particulars.

Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.

There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.

Thank god no one said anything in verse.

The neighbors were our only chorus,

And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.

At no time did anyone say anything in verse.

It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,

And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.

No audience would ever know our story.

It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.

We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.

What audience would ever know our story?

Beyond our windows shone the actual world.

We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.

And time went by, drawn by slow horses.

Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world.

The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.

And time went by, drawn by slow horses.

We did not ourselves know what the end was.

The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.

We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.

But we did not ourselves know what the end was.

People like us simply go on.

We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues,

But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.

And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.

The poem describes the life of a man during the great depression, describing in detail the harsh survival that it was. He uses great figurative language to describe the time. It helps the reader imagine them self in the time.

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This art piece uses a dark palette to show the toll that fishing has caused them while trying to get by during the time.  Work during this time was difficult as well as the economy getting worse.  People would work for hours on farms or fishing just to barely sell due to the low demand.  This image greatly depicts the struggle of working men during the time.

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This art piece uses a dark palette to show the toll that fishing has caused them while trying to get by during the time.  Work during this time was difficult as well as the economy getting worse.  People would work for hours on farms or fishing just to barely sell due to the low demand.  This image greatly depicts the struggle of working men during the time.

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Life and Art in the Great Depression

"I’ll work for fifteen [cents]. I’ll work for food. The kids. You ought to see them. Little boils, like, comin’ out, an’ they can’t run aroun’. Give ‘em some windfall fruits, an’ they bloated up. Me. I’ll work for a little piece of meat… the children of the poor grew up rachitic, and the pustules of pellagra swelled on their sides.

-from The Grapes of Wrath"

The quote shows a working man that will do anything to make a little money or food. The man also says he has kids with boils coming out of their bodies.

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This woman explains the hardships of living in the great depression and how to survive it.  She gives tips on growing plants to get food and the most efficient ways to grow crops.  She explains that it doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl in the family, they would all have the same jobs around the house.

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This woman explains the hardships of living in the great depression and how to survive it.  She gives tips on growing plants to get food and the most efficient ways to grow crops.  She explains that it doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl in the family, they would all have the same jobs around the house.

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"I only wants a common living to exist without starving and freezing to death.

-anonymous letter to F.D.R., 1935, in "Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man"

An anonymous man wanted to have a normal life where he could live peacefully without the worry of starving or freezing.

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The failure of banks and how it impacted the lives of the common man.

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The failure of banks and how it impacted the lives of the common man.

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"What I would like to know is this: how can a bank take our money and get by while an old couple have to let their house go?

-letter to FDR from a 13-year-old boy, 1934 in Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letter from the Forgotten Man"

A 13 year old boy, although young, still questions how a bank can take more money than they need while the families they take it from have to sell their houses to pay the debts.

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Analysis of new data from the early 1930s suggests that depositors' fears led to runs on banks that were clustered in time and space. These panics significantly reduced lending and monetary aggregates.

Between 1929 and 1932, the money supply and bank lending in the United States declined by more than 30 percent. In Contagion of Fear (NBER Working Paper ), Kris James Mitchener and Gary Richardson attribute much of this decline to the changing behavior of bank depositors. In 1930, after the collapse of Caldwell and Company, the largest bank-holding company in the South, runs on banks became widespread. The calling card of a panic, according to contemporaries, was the suspension of numerous banks in close proximity in a short period, such as within ten miles and 30 days. These panics deprived banks of deposits, which forced them to adjust their balance sheets and reduce lending to businesses and households. These declines in deposits and increases in reserves account for almost all of the decline in the money supply during the Great Depression.

The researchers assemble a new set of data on bank balance sheets, loans, deposits, and reserves as well as currency in circulation at the Federal Reserve district level, most of which was originally published in the Federal Reserve Bulletin. The data allow them to calculate the money supply in each Fed district at call dates, roughly quarterly. They compare this new data to microdata on bank failures gathered from the archives of the Fed.

The data demonstrate that the average number of weekly bank suspensions doubled after Caldwell's failure in the fall of 1930, rising from 15.1 to 39.1. Panic-induced bank closures peaked in the last quarter of 1930 and in the last two quarters of 1931. Among the bank suspensions that occurred during panics, about 55 percent were associated with large regional or national events, while the remainder were due to local conditions.

The researchers find that when banks failed during periods that were not classified as panics, there was usually a "flight to quality," with deposits flowing to Federal Reserve member banks; these banks were likely seen as more stable than non-member banks. During panics, however, the reverse was true, and deposits flowed out of the banking system, even from Fed member banks. These outflows were associated with reduced lending, although the magnitude of the effect varied by place. For each dollar that flowed out of a Federal Reserve System member bank in New York or Chicago, the two central reserve cities, business loans declined by an estimated 35 cents. By comparison, a dollar flowing out of a member bank in another city on average reduced lending by 54 cents. At non-member banks, a one-dollar deposit outflow was associated with a 51-cent decline in loans.

Combining microeconomic data on individual bank suspensions with these econometric estimates allows the researchers to calculate the aggregate impact of panics on economy-wide lending. Their findings indicate that banking panics reduced lending in banks that remained in operation by $6.4 billion, nearly twice the $3.3 billion in loans and investments trapped in failed banks. Keeping the money supply constant at the pre-Depression level would have required a 60 percent expansion in the monetary base. This expansion would have been feasible, given resources available to the Fed at the time, and would not have seemed unreasonable in the decades after the Depression. It was, for example, only one-third as large as the 200 percent expansion in the monetary base that policymakers enacted following the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The researchers note that their findings underscore the importance of bank balance sheets in both downturns and recoveries.

- Linda Gorman

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Fear of Failure, Bank Panics, and the Great Depression

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Analysis of new data from the early 1930s suggests that depositors' fears led to runs on banks that were clustered in time and space. These panics significantly reduced lending and monetary aggregates. Between 1929 and 1932, the money supply and bank lending in the United States declined by more than 30 percent.

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The article discusses the impact that unemployment had on the population during the great depression.  Finding a job during this time was difficult because everyone was trying to do it.  Finding a career was more difficult.  Men would often find jobs that might feed them and their family for a few months, but it was rare to find a job that was consistent and a man could keep.

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The article discusses the impact that unemployment had on the population during the great depression.  Finding a job during this time was difficult because everyone was trying to do it.  Finding a career was more difficult.  Men would often find jobs that might feed them and their family for a few months, but it was rare to find a job that was consistent and a man could keep.

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"That farm was probably worth seventy or eighty thousand dollars, and they'd foreclose on a $15,000 mortgage. That wasn't fair.

-Rome Hentges, in Hard Times"

Money was so tight at the time that even though the land was worth much more than it sold for, the people selling it were happy with anything so they could get by.

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A worldwide depression struck countries with market economies at the end of the 1920s. Although the Great Depression was relatively mild in some countries, it was severe in others, particularly in the United States, where, at its nadir in 1933, 25 percent of all workers and 37 percent of all nonfarm…

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The gif is of a man running into his house in the wind.  The house looks like it was built in the ground to stay up in the harsh winds.  The dust bowls were a huge threat to people living near them.  Buildings would be destroyed and people would lose their lives.  

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The gif is of a man running into his house in the wind.  The house looks like it was built in the ground to stay up in the harsh winds.  The dust bowls were a huge threat to people living near them.  Buildings would be destroyed and people would lose their lives.  

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"The rag town lay close to water; and the houses were tents, and weed-thatched enclosures, paper houses, a great junk pile. The man drove his family in and became a citizen of Hooverville- always they were called Hooverville... And when the rains came the house melted and washed away. He settles in Hooverville and he scoured the countryside for work, and the little money he had went for gasoline to look for work.

-from The Grapes of Wrath"

People would become so broke that they were forced to move into "Hoovervilles" and look for work.

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The image of 4 homeless men eating.  They couldn't find jobs and are seen as having no value to the government, making it up to donation programs to keep them alive.  Homeless men would often rely on handouts due to their inability to get their own jobs, houses, and food.

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The image of 4 homeless men eating.  They couldn't find jobs and are seen as having no value to the government, making it up to donation programs to keep them alive.  Homeless men would often rely on handouts due to their inability to get their own jobs, houses, and food.

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"Why does Every Thing have Exceptional Value. Except the Human being?

-  anonymous letter to Hebert Hoover, 1930, in Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letter from the Forgotten Man"

The quote relates to the image. People without jobs were seen as worthless and having no value if they didn't help the economy. Homeless people relied on donations and handouts from programs instead of given jobs by the government.

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This academic news article describes the results of unemployment during the great depression as well as how it was solved.  Unemployment was the main cause of the depression.  Without people having jobs, there is no money going around.  This made goods more expensive to buy, but not enough money to pay for them.

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This academic news article describes the results of unemployment during the great depression as well as how it was solved.  Unemployment was the main cause of the depression.  Without people having jobs, there is no money going around.  This made goods more expensive to buy, but not enough money to pay for them.

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"The migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbing to live, looked always for pleasure, dug for pleasure, manufactured pleasure, and they were hungry for amusement. Sometimes amusement lay in speech, and they climbed up their lives and jokes.

-from The Grapes of Wrath"

The quote is describing the hard life of immigrants who came to the country for a better and safer life, but are unable to find jobs and are "scrabbing" to live.

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The Causes and Cures of Unemployment in the Great Depression on JSTOR

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Richard J. Jensen, The Causes and Cures of Unemployment in the Great Depression, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Spring, 1989), pp. 553-583

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The image depicts three men sleeping in the open during the middle of the day, likely tired and hungry.  Homeless men didn't have places to sleep after work so they often slept outside.  They also didn't make much so eating was also a struggle.

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The image depicts three men sleeping in the open during the middle of the day, likely tired and hungry.  Homeless men didn't have places to sleep after work so they often slept outside.  They also didn't make much so eating was also a struggle.

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"I have worked hard all my life, and all I have now is my  broken body.

-California field hand, in The Fabulous Century"

People worked so hard just to stay alive that by the time they were old, they couldn't do much.

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The image depicts a family working to get what looks to be water out of a well.  Families would work together no matter the age.  Time were very tough and all help possible was needed just to get by.

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The image depicts a family working to get what looks to be water out of a well.  Families would work together no matter the age.  Time were very tough and all help possible was needed just to get by.

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"Us people has got to stick together to get by these hard times.

-Large migration family, in This Fabulous Century"

Families would combine themselves with other families to make enough money for rent and food.