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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

Much more than just a period of economic and agricultural crises. The Depression was a majority-impacting event in the lives of many people affected by it. Reflecting the desperation that individual people felt regarding the standards they face in living. Starvation and extreme weather contributed to the widespread struggle people faced during this period.

Carrot pullers

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"Yessir, we’re starved, stalled and stranded." - “Okie,” in This Fabulous Century

During the Great Depression, a dust bowl tore through the Great Plains. Heavily affecting Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles. The Dust Bowl lasted from 1930 to 1936. The storms and droughts that followed devastated many people's farms, factories, banks, and mines Resulting in an agricultural and economic depression. "Starved, stalled and stranded" conveys the hardships many faced. Most lost their jobs, and their farms and were left in severe poverty leaving them feeling stranded. Forcing many to migrate away to seek better opportunities.

Black Sunday Dust Bowl

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“In every truth, the beneficiaries of a system cannot be expected to destroy it.” -Asa Philip Randolph

During the Great Depression, the US hit an economic crisis and many Black Americans were first in line to be hit by these problems. They were pushed out of work and many of the benefits from the New Deal weren't extended to Black Americans. White people often refused to give Black Americans access to the New Deals programs due to racism. The depression hit many hard but marginalized groups such as Black Americans were victims at the forefront of these issues.

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The Great Depression: Crash Course Black American History #28

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"Please help us. My mother is sick three year and was in the hospital three month and she came out but she is not better and my Father is [paralyzed] and cannot work and we are poor… " - Letter to FDR from a 10-year-old girl 1936

Without the basic resources and necessities needed to support their families and children. Children were unable to help their parents and families. The letter shown above displays the desperate state the depression left people in. Without jobs, this letter reaching out to the president for help shows the disillusion and desperate nature that the Great Depression left families and children.

At Parting Poem by Anne Barbara Ridler

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"For the last three or four years we have had a depression and suffered with my family and little children severely... I have no money, no home, and no wheres to go. I beg of you to please help me and my family and little children for the sake of a sick mother and suffering family to give this your immediate attention so we will not be forced to move or put out in the street" - Letter to FDR from Mrs. E.L. 1934.

Families during the Great Depression were left with very little resources. The unemployment rates left them unable to pay for necessities and pay for things like food or clothes. Migrant mothers were unable to support their children and had to watch them suffer without the necessities to live. The mother displayed in the quote has faced depression for many years and is on the verge of losing their home. Her pleads for help reflect the disillusionment and desperation the depression left people in.

Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother

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

-Large migration family, in This Fabulous Century

Farmers throughout Oklahoma and Texas were devastated by the Dust Bowl which destroyed their farms, crops, livestock, and their lives. Farmers were left hungry poor and desperate but left with the idea of sticking together for mutual support and survival. The article on these issues also displays what it was like for these farmers to have to move from Oklahoma's devastated lands to somewhere like California.

Children of the Harvest

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"The economic crisis and intensified class struggle of the 1930’s resulted in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers from the U.S. As unemployment the southwest soared—worsened by the migration of over a million people into California from other parts of the United States between 1930 and 1940—as urban Mexican communities in such cities as Los Angeles began to rebel against the oppression ./and as farm labor strikes flared up throughout California, the steel net of the border “gestapo '' swept through the Mexican barrios. In California, in particular, the militancy of the Mexican workers-many of whom were active trade unionists and members of the communist Party—met fierce repression. More than 75,000 Mexcians were deported from Los Angeles alone in 1931." - from Beyond the Border: Mexico and the U.S Today

Mexican Americans had to face many more challenges during the Great Depression. The economic and agricultural crises that plagued that era heavily affected Mexican Americans. Unemployment was sweeping through the US and many Mexican American immigrants were being deported and forced back to Mexico. In 1931, as the quote states, more than "75,000" Mexican Americans living in California were deported. The mural is a segment from the Great Wall of Los Angeles and represents how hard the depression had hit Mexican Americans at the time and the challenges the US put them through.

350,000 Mexican Americans Deported - Segment from the Great Wall of Los Angeles

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"All that dust made some of the farmers leave; they became the Okies.. We stuck it out here. We scratched, literally scratched, to live. We’d come to town to sells our cream for nine cents a pound. If we could find a town big nough away from the dust, we could sell eggs at ten cents a dozen. Despite all the dust and the wind, we were putting in crops, but making no crops and barley living out of barnyard products only. We made five crop failures in five years." - Oklahoma farmer, in This Fabulous Century

The devastation of the Oklahoma and Texas dust bowl destroyed the lives of many farmers and workers in that area. They were left desperate and without their crops no way to survive and create income. The fine art shown above by Deal Sobel displays the depression the Dust Bowl brought. The muted colors and long faces symbolize the struggle that Texas and Oklahoma farmers faced.

The Dust Bowl by Dean Sobel

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"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 shown above is from a novel by John Steinback in 1939 and focuses on a family of tenant farmers from Oklahoma and how they faced the results of the Dust Bowl. Many families would work and earn very little in return. Due to the family's poverty, the children are described as being "Little boils", meaning they were skinny or malnourished due to them not being able to afford food or necessities which was common during the Great Depression.

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"We make as much is fitten for such as us runnin' -around folks. Cain't send the children to school we ain't got the clothes. By a'savin up we get so's we can move on to the next place. We haven't had no help no way." - Texas migrant worker in California, in This Fabulous Century.

Since families were unable to support their children due to the unemployment and agricultural crises at the time. Many families especially their children were left stranded. Lacking the resources needed to support themselves and move away from the places affected by the Dust Bowl. Without a way to work or attend school children and families were left desperate and poor.

Children of the Great Depression