Chapter 11 Section 2

Life During the Great Depression

Bad Times

• The Depression grew worse during Hoover’s administration.

• Thousands of banks failed, and thousands of companies went out of business.

More Bad Times

• Millions of Americans were unemployed.

• Many relied on bread lines and soup kitchens for food.

• In 1932 alone, some 30,000 companies went out of business.

Losing Homes

• Many people could not afford to pay their rent or mortgage and lost their homes.

• Court officers, called bailiffs, evicted nonpaying tenants.

Hoovervilles

• Throughout the country, newly homeless people put up shacks on unused or public land, forming communities called shantytowns.

• Blaming the president for their plight, people referred to these shantytowns such places as Hoovervilles.

Hobos

• Some homeless and unemployed people wandered around the country.

• Known as hobos, they traveled by sneaking onto open boxcars on freight trains.

Farming

• Great Plains Farmers soon faced a new problem.

• When crop prices decreased in the 1920s, farmers left many fields unplanted.

• In 1932, the Great Plains experienced a severe drought.

Dust Bowl

• The unplanted soil turned to dust.

• Much of the Plains became a Dust Bowl.

• From the Dakotas to Texas, America's wheat fields became a vast “Dust Bowl.”

Heading West

• Many families packed their belongings into old cars or trucks and headed west , hoping for a better life in California.

• Still, many remained homeless and poor.

Movies

• Americans turned to entertainment to escape the hardships of the Depression.

• During the 1930s, more than 60 million Americans went to the movies each week, which features child stars such as Shirley Temple who provided people with a way to escape their daily worries.

Comedians

• Millions of people listened to comedians such as Jack Benny, George Burns, and Gracie Allen.

Disney

• Americans also enjoyed cartoons. Walt Disney produced the first feature-length animated film in 1937. Even films that focused on the serious side of life were generally optimistic.

1939 Movies

• Two movies from this period were The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, both produced in 1939.

• Gone with the Wind is a Civil War epic that won nine Academy Awards. One went to Hattie McDaniel, who won Best Supporting Actress. She was the first African American to win an Academy Award.

Radio

• Americans also listened to the radio.

• They listened to news, comedy shows, and adventure programs like The Lone Ranger.

Soap Operas

• Short daytime dramas were also popular.

• These radio melodramas were often sponsored by makers of laundry soaps, causing the shows to be nicknamed soap operas.

Arts (Writers & Painters)

• During the Depression, artists and writers portrayed the life around them.

• Art and literature in the 1930s reflected the realities of life during the Depression.

• Painters such as Grant Wood showed traditional American values, particularly those of the rural Midwest and the South.

• His painting American Gothic is one of the most famous American works of art.

John Steinbeck

• The writing of novelists such as John Steinbeck evoked sympathy for their characters and indignation at social injustice.

• Steinbeck wrote about the lives of people in the Depression.

Grapes of Wrath

• In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck told the story of an Oklahoma farm family who fled the Dust Bowl to find a better life in California.

• He based his writing on visits to and articles about migrant camps in California.

William Faulkner

• Some writers during the Depression influenced literary style.

• In a technique known as stream of consciousness, William Faulkner showed what his characters were thinking and feeling without using conventional dialogue.

• Faulkner explored the issue of race in the American South.

Life Magazine • Photographers traveled

around the nation taking pictures of life around them.

• In 1936, magazine publisher Henry Luce introduced Life, a weekly photojournalism magazine that enjoyed instant success and showcased the work of photojournalists, such as Dorothea Lange and Margaret Bourke-White, who documented the hardships of the Great Depression.