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The Hardships of African American Families

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The Hardships of African American Families

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"Us people have got to stick together to get by these hard times"
-large migration family

All families had to stick together and find a job in order to get through those dark times. This obstacle was a difficult hurdle during the great depression especially for African Americans as they reportedly reached a "50 percent" unemployment rate because they prioritized white people that were also in desperate need of a job. These families were "hit the hardest" as the prices of cotton were reduced to six cents per pound so most families had to migrate to Midwestern states where "large chapters" of the KKK were formed and revived during the 1930s. There were dangerous reports of Klansman who publicly beat a black physician in "Jefferson County who had treated white patients and murdered three black farm laborers Shelby County" They would also harshly reinforce segregation in order to reestablish Jim Crow Laws. Below is a child that had to go towards the "colored" section of a water fountain.
Sources:

The Great Depression

Ku Klux Klan in Alabama from 1915-1930

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“These storms were like rolling black smoke. We had to keep the lights on all day. We went to school with headlights on and with dust masks on. "
-Texas schoolboy, in This Fabulous Century
This account was one of many dangerous obstacles children had to face during the dust bowl. In an interview with historian, Bob Burke, a Dust Bowl expert, states how school would be closed for weeks and roads were closed because mountains of sand would cover them. When babies were born they had to place wet cloths over their mouths and nose for the first few weeks to keep from dust clogging their airways.  What I was curious was of what these children did to past time. As Burke continues, he states that without: television or radio, they would often be taught mathematics and English from their parents or read the bible. The worst struggle that children faced was developing depression as children would go to "bed crying" because they would often see their parents stressed and would have nothing to occupy their time.  Below is a video of a first person experience of a child in the Great Depression and he recounts how in school dust would seep in cause the "panes didn't fit like they do today". As we can see, dust storms were sadly affecting the children and stunted their growth in the world.
Sources:
-What Was it Like Being a Kid During the Dust Bowl?
-https://youtu.be/Se9JEmbOQTo

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Remembering the droughts: Growing up in the 1930s

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Count Basie and During the Harlem Renaissance

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Count Basie and During the Harlem Renaissance

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"In every truth, the beneficiaries of a system cannot be expected to destroy it"
This quote shows the battle that every African American had to face during the Great Depression because people still viewed them as volatile. With the Harlem renaissance and the resurgence of black culture, Count Basie was one of the African American jazz musicians that gained success during the Great Depression. Basie was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1902 and and only had a junior high education. He dreamed of having a traveling life, inspired by seeing the carnivals that would come in and out of his town. He led his own orchestra in 1936 called the Count Basie Orchestra and even met Louis Armstrong before the age of 20. He eventually went on to win many awards such as a Grammy for Best Performance by an Orchestra during the 1960s. Below is a newspaper article announcing his performance at a beachfront. Basie was one of the musicians that helped develop a new perspective on the the stereotypes that were placed on African Americans as meek or uneducated.
Sources:
Count Basie: African American Musicians

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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 sell our cream for nine cents a pound . If we could find a town big enough and far enough away from the dust , we could sell eggs for ten cents a dozen ...made five crop failures in five years"
-Oklahoma Farmer

As the quote suggests, many farmers were pushed to move out of their small towns and into cities as grasshoppers and the dust bowl prevented for them to make any profit. Hundreds were driven out of Nebraska however the majority "toughed it out" because people were rooted to stay in the state that they grew up with. The art below by Alexander Hague called "Drouth Survivors" highlights on the animals that were affected by the dust bowl. He wanted to draw sympathy towards the hundredths of deaths of innocent cattle. Problems stemmed from the cycle of debt that Farmers faced because of the fluctuated prices for crops. The New Deal aimed to help farmers raise money by making resources artificially scarce. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration was created and encourage farmers to produce less and throw away any abundant crops. The farmers followed the AAA as they gave them steady income to which they sought after their desperation during the after the dust bowl and the economic crisis.
Sources:

Farm Life during the Great Depression

The Farming Problem [ushistory.org]

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"The economic crisis and intensified class struggle of the 1930s resulted in the deportation of Hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers from the US . As unemployment in the southwest soared--worsened by the migration of over a million people into California from other parts of the United States between 1930 and 1910 - as urban Mexican communities in such cities as Los Angeles began to rebel against their oppression and farm labor strikes flared up throughout California... More than 75 000 Mexican were deported from Los Angeles alone in 1931 ."
- From the Beyond the Border

Although this quote was from the 1930s, we are scarily finding the same pattern today. In the 1930s-40s, "2 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were deported or expelled " from the U.S. and was deported to Mexico which betrayed their natural rights. The Mexican Repatriation. This was because of the argument that many Americans had that they were "stealing" their jobs when jobs were scarce for everyone.In the mind of the American government and President Hoover, Mexicans are Mexicans and that “American jobs for real Americans”. One account was Esteban Torres who was a toddler at the time. is father was  a Mexican immigrant that was caught at a mine that he worked at and was never seen back to his family. Below the picture shows Mexican's being deported back to Mexico.In today's politics the government is empowered by people that focus time on building a wall and making mexico to pay for that wall against Mexico. I hope none of the unjust mistakes won't repeat again.
Sources: Mass Deportation May Sound Unlikely, But It's Happened Before

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Monopoly is one of the most popular games that sprung from the Great Depression. Originally a game by Elizabeth J. Magie, her goal was to spread the evils of capitalism. It wasn't until the Parker Brothers that re-branded it that it made commercial success. The game provided not only a cheap way of entertainment but also was a "psychological elixir" as it would  help people be distracted by the economic downturns that people were facing. This game offered a  "release from the tensions of everyday life." as the article states below.

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When the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, people had played Monopoly for at least three decades. But the downturn proved to be an unlikely golden age for the real estate board game-and one with riddled with irony.

Elizabeth J. Magie, the game's originator, first received her patent in 1904 for the Landlord's Game, which she designed to teach the world about the evils of capitalism. Her game spread throughout left-wing political circles for decades, until a version of it made its way into the hands of the Quakers in Atlantic City in the early 1930s. It's a rendition of that game which was sold to Parker Brothers during the Depression and became a commercial success, saving the company from the brink of bankruptcy.

The success of Monopoly befuddled many. Why, in a time of great financial despair, would families and friends want to gather around and swap cash and real estate?

Nor was Monopoly's success isolated; it echoed a broader trend of board games flourishing during the Great Depression.

Board games offered budget-friendly entertainment.

Advertising Archive/Everett

No one felt more surprised by the board game boom at the time than than Parker Brothers executives. With most American household budgets buckling, it felt only logical to game industry executives that retail, particularly for diversionary products, would plunge along with the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Then, and now, there are many reasons why board games remain a bright spot in economic downturns, typically bleak spots for retailers. Board games are relatively cheap, reusable and can entertain a wide age range. One Monopoly board can keep a family occupied for many evenings, a plus considering the budget-stretching demands of the moment.

Another theory: people stayed in. Edward Parker, the grandnephew of the founder, George Parker, recalled years later, "During the Depression, people did not have enough money to go out to the shows . . . So they stayed home and played Monopoly."
Read more: Life for the Average Family During the Great Depression
The game not only provided cheap entertainment, it also offered a psychological elixir, as Parker said, it gave people "a feeling of wealth." "But what kept it going is the chance for individual gain. It appeals to the competitive nature of people," he said. "The player can always say to himself, 'I'm going to get the better of the other guy.' People also can play Monopoly without it being the end of the world. Sort of a release from the tensions of everyday life."

Board games in America date back to the earliest Native American communities and became more commercially marketed in the mid-19th century as Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers grew their respective businesses in Salem, Massachusetts. But unlike previous economic crashes, indoor lighting was more ubiquitous during the Great Depression and offered a boon to the indoor recreation world. And with many people out of work, there was more time to kill than ever.

Scrabble was invented by a bored, unemployed man.

Kirn Vintage Stock/Corbis/Getty Images

Scrabble, as chronicled by Stefan Fatsis in his tome Word Freak, was the 1938 brainchild of the Alfred Mosher Butts, who built his game off of a previous game he had invented called Lexiko.

The boredom of unemployment helped fuel Butts. "Well, I wasn't doing anything," Butts later recalled. "That's the trouble. I didn't have anything to do; I didn't have a job. So I thought I'd invent a game."

Sales numbers at places like the newly-opened F.A.O. Schwarz, may not have reflected the whole picture. If a family couldn't afford a store-bought Monopoly or Scrabble board, it was possible to take a look at a neighbor's and make a bootleg copy, as countless families did with Monopoly, often localizing the properties to reflect their respective communities. Even more budget-friendly games flourished at the time, as well, like bridge, canasta and pinochle, which required far less equipment, in some cases merely a pack of playing cards. Jigsaw puzzles and miniature golf reigned, as well.

Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley, longstanding New England rivals, also used the 1930s to breathe new life into versions of older games in their catalog, like the Game of Life and Chutes and Ladders. Other efforts proved less memorable. (A game of Wahoo, anyone?)

Manufacturing of the games also shifted. Sorry!, a commercial version of the ancient game of pachisi, hit American game shelves in 1934 by way of Waddington's a British company that would later unleash Clue on the world. While today's versions of Sorry! are typically sold in long, slender boxes with plastic pawns, the American version that Parker Brothers sold a more economical version in a small box with wooden tokens, less paper to print at a lower cost and a product better suited to last.

The 2008 financial crisis also bumped game sales.

More than 70 years later, the board game world experienced another renaissance, even as it faced stiffer competition from video and mobile games. In 2008, the financial crisis plunged and toy sales declined three percent that year, according to NPD Group Inc. But board game sales rose by six percent in 2008, one of only a handful of indicators (other than debt) that was up. Many of the titles leading the charge were stalwarts, like Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit, but other new games like Settlers of Catan emerged as recession-era retail triumphs.

While some of the same forces at play in the 1930s remain, in recent times a desire to avoid screens has spurred board game sales.

"Catan has benefited from a growing desire to interact and socialize away from screens," Guido Teuber, managing director of Catan told CNBC. "Specifically, Catan is a game in which players are always involved. There is no downtime."

Then and now, board games represent an escapist fantasy of sorts, a form of role-playing that allow people to do things in one arena that they may not be able to do in reality, be that swapping real estate or channeling the role of a pioneering settler.

Monopoly's marketing in the 1930s represented similar magical thinking. In its promotion of the game, Parker Brothers told the Horatio Alger tale of Charles B. Darrow, a man who was unemployed and ginned up the game to try and brighten his family's spirits in dark times. Selling the game made him a millionaire.

Monopoly's original inventor was overlooked.

Public Domain

The problem with the story is, however captivating, it wasn't true. Magie became outraged when she saw her game spreading nationally during the Depression and she received no credit. Other offshoots of Magie's game like Finance and Inflation also were sold around the same time. And, in an attempt to capitalize off of Monopoly's success, Parker Brothers released another financially-themed game, Bulls and Bears, featuring Darrow's face on the box.

In 1936 as the national Monopoly craze continued in full swing, Magie called reporters with the Washington Evening Star and the Washington Post. She showed them versions of her boards and told them she made only $500 from her invention. "There is nothing new under the sun," she told the Post.

Only in recent years has Magie become accepted as the game's inventor. She died in 1948 and, according to court documents, never made more than that $500 off of her board game. She may have invented one of the most iconic games about money, but Magie, herself, never had her chance to "pass Go" and collect the profits.

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How the Great Depression Became the Golden Age for Monopoly

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When the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, people had played Monopoly for at least three decades. But the downturn proved to be an unlikely golden age for the real estate board game-and one with riddled with irony. Elizabeth J.

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"When they need us they call us migrants. When we've picked their crops we're bums and we've got to get out"
As work was scarce migrants and people in general found it extremely difficult to find jobs. When Henry Ford created the assembly line, he made finding employment easier for unskilled workers and they could be taught within a few days. By 1914, more than "90 percent of the workers" were immigrants in the Ford plant. This cost effective and cheap method thrived during the Great Depression as people needed cheaper cars. Currently, we use the assembly line process for the majority of the products produced in America. The assembly line process being popularized helped to create products for cheaper during the 1930s and it helped grow our economy today.
Sources: Employment

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Hollywood thrived as people wanted movies as a form of escapism. This was a time that Charlie Chaplin thrived as his goofy antics would spring joy into people's lives. The poster below shows Chaplin's 1931 The City Nights. Other celebrities like the Marx Brothers had success and ultimately created the two famous films "A Night at the Opera" and "A Day at the Races" The comedic group found astonishing success and fame and fit the time's "zany, archaic humor". The importance of Hollywood films increased as more people demanded films. This was the start to the societal status we place celebrities to today.
Sources:
-How Movies Got Us Through the Great Depression
-9 Things You May Not Know About Charlie Chaplin

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In the cartoon below, it shows an early rendition of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. In 1933, an animation was created for the show and this episode was called Confidence, which helped spread President Roosevelt's attitude for people to gain confidence in order to get through the Depression. The can-do spirit that the FDR's New Deal encouraged these types of animations in order to push Americans to get up and work. In this animation Oswald injects confidence into depressed characters which perfectly shows the governmental dose of mentality that the government pushes onto people.
Sources:Confidence: The Cartoon That Helped America Get Through the Great Depression (1933)

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CONFIDENCE - 1933 Cartoon, with Oswald the Rabbit and President Franklin Roosevelt

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"I am a widow with a son fourteen years of age and am trying to support him and myself and keep him in school on a very small sum I make. I feel worthy of asking you about this: I am greatly in need of a Coat. If you have one which you have laid aside from last season I would appreciate it so much if you would send it to me"

This quote embodied the mentality that mother's had to inhibit in order to survive during the Great Depression for their children. This is shown through the increase of women in the workforce rising up to 24 percent during the 1930s as the field of “women work” consisted of teachers, nurses, and other domestic work. This was the result of male predominated industries like coal mining that were strongly impacted by the stock market crash. Although women were undeserving paid less and their positions were volatile, they took these jobs in order to provide for their families since the role of men in families were compromised. Men often became depressed as they viewed themselves as failures for not keeping up the responsibility as the breadwinner of the family. Although mother’s were heavily relied on to be the sole providers, laws were frightfully mandated to prevent women from the workforce. For example the 1932 Federal Economy Act stated that only one member of a family was allowed to work. This was a tactic to make married women dependent on men because of the societal standard of men providing and women tending to domestic duties. Thankfully, today this societal standard has improved today as the Women’s Bureau states that women comprise 47% of the workforce. The poem by the famous African American poet, Langston Hughes during the Great Depression. He was inspired to make this poem of a mother encouraging her son to persevere through hard times because of his own father who walked out and his mother and grandmother had to raise him.
Sources:

Underpaid, But Employed: How the Great Depression Affected Working Women

Employment of Women in the 1930s - The Thirties