The Effects of the Great Depression on Children You’re dreaming and you see your birthday from last year. You see the giant feast your mom made. Creamy mashed potatoes, just the way you like it, juicy roasted chicken with your favorite seasonings, and little green peas, your favorite. A giant mountain of gifts awaits you in the living room, and after that grand meal a giant cake with two tiers with just the right amount of frosting is next. As you start to take a bite, you wake up. For a split second you forget. You forget that your dad lost his job, your brother died working in a mine, you have no money, no food, and that you nearly lost your entire head of hair at the factory. Then the deep growl howling from your stomach snaps you back …show more content…
In the 1920s, schools spent lots of money building and expanding schools. When the Great Depression, came like a giant tornado whirling out of control, many schools had too much debt, so they closed down. Other schools stayed open by eliminating extra programs like sports, the arts, and foreign language. When schools terminate these activities, the value of the schools ability to provide education goes down. Children need to be exposed to those things to thrive in life. Some schools even stopped serving lunch, so numerous children who didn’t have enough food now received at least one less meal a day. African American students were not welcome to white schools. They were put in a completely separate building due to segregation. Many children gave up their education to ride the rails in hope of a better …show more content…
Can you see the stack of gifts, the restaurant your parents took you too, and that delicious birthday cake? Thanks to the Great Depression, children didn’t get that, they woke up hungry on their birthday with no presents, feasts, or cake. The reality of children’s lives in the Great depression was truly depressing because of child labor, poor education, children hopping trains, and children without a childhood. Young children had to get jobs to try and support their families. Education was barely average if it was still available at all, and children ran away putting their life on the line to ride the rails. The saddest thing is kids couldn’t be kids. They had to worry about things like where the next meal was coming from or possibly dying at
No Promises In the Wind, authored by Irene Hunt, gives an excellent description of growing up in the center of the Great Depression. Chapter One begins with the alerting sound of an alarm clock going off at 4am. Josh, a fifteen year old boy, leaves his bed, and departs from his family’s home to deliver newspapers. Notwithstanding, the paper route brought very little money, but the money earned was needed. Directly after finishing his route, Josh returns home to prepare for school, where he anticipated the day’s end, knowing that Miss Crowne’s music room belonged to them after school hours.
The Great Depression is one of the worst time for America. Books, cartoons, and articles have been written about the people during the Depression and how they survived in that miserable period. For example, the book Bud not Buddy takes place in the time of the Great Depression. Bud is a ten year old orphan, who was on the run trying to find his dad. There are many feelings throughout the book like sadness and scarceness. There are many diverse tones in the book about what people were feeling at the time.
They left people without jobs, homes, and money. In the story “Digging In” by Robert J. Hastings it explains how people did anything to make money for their families even if it was only for 5 dollars. Even with these hard times some people still had hope like it showed in “Depts” by Karen Hesse. In this poem a farmer had hope that rain would come to grow his dying wheat while his wife didn’t think so. This was a very stressful time right until president Roosevelt made some changes. In the article “The New Deal” it explains how Roosevelt helped end the great depression with programs that gave millions of people jobs. The great depression was a very hard, stressful, and sad time for the american people that had many
They way people interacted with others changed in the Great Depression. One of the main changes is the way the family was run. During the glutted 1920s, the father is the support of the family while the mother do the housekeeping. When the great depression struck, the men lost their jobs. They can no longer support their families. Because of self pride, many fathers left their families and never came back because felt that they lost their purpose in the
The Great Depression, beginning in the last few months of 1929, impacted the vast majority of people nationwide and worldwide. With millions of Americans unemployed and many in danger of losing their homes, they could no longer support their families. Children, if they were lucky, wore torn up ragged clothing to school and those who were not lucky remained without clothes. The food supply was scarce, and bread was the most that families could afford. Households would receive very limited rations of food, or small amounts of money to buy food.
When talking about a school that is mostly filled with African Americans, it is common to picture it as somewhere that has limited programs due to low funding from the government and located where poverty rate is high. Normally the thought of a brand new facility or more investment in schools is not associated with African American schools. The universal problem of mostly black schools is the fact that there is a lack of funding for the school and it...
The education gap between the north and the south has many roles in the African American community. The north has always been industrial while the south was agricultural, many of these children who was suppose to be attending school was helping on farms working and helping their parents throughout the day instead of getting an education. “The percentage of all schools with so called racial or socio-economic isolation grew from 9% to 16%” Today students still experience or has been a victim to social and racial differences. When segregation was abolished it allowed students to be in the same classroom together, be able to eat and go to the same bathrooms, also being taught by the same teacher. However many teachers failed to realized or wanted to teach these students based on the color of their skin, causing many students to drop out of school because of not being heard. The black community has a low rate of graduation rates in the south than the white community “In the last four years more than 69 percent of white louisiana males graduated making for a 16 point difference, while 59 percent of black louisiana males graduated” These school systems doesn’t care that they’re not being taught or graduation. Based on race in louisiana it’s a 10 percent difference that causing them to less likely become successful. Still causing the social differences teachers refused to teach an African American student
Through out history education has been a topic of many concerns. Historically Black Colleges and Universities were established to try and provide freed slaves education they were not able to obtain. For African Americans in the 20th century attending school was a burden. The children had to withstand long walks to get to their designated schools, being denied classes that the white students had in their schools, outdated books and hand me down classroom materials. African Americans all across the United States fought for their kids rights to get a good education, education provided to white only schools. There was a period of time schools were able to legally deny a student acceptance into their institutions based solely on the color of their skin. Many African Americans tried and majority of them got denied. Students at all levels were being denied, from Pre-K all the way up to college. After many attempts to integrate schools parents of the children being denied education just like the white kids, they realized it would be easier to just build their own schools.
The Great Depression was a difficult time to have a family. Money was Scarce and food was expensive. Family where torn apart by Stress and financial issues. The Braddock family was a poor with a father struggling to keep food on the table and the lights on. The Great Depression had a great impact on the Braddock family by making them face economic hardship, emotional distress, and family unity.
Furthermore, a narrative of the Depression: "It was always cold in the house; the only warmth was a wood burning stove in the corner. We used to sit and listen to Gracie and Burn's on the 7 o'clock show. Dinner was watered down onion stew with a slice of bread. "We worked in the fields, maybe 9, 10, hours per day, maybe more. Pay was two dollars a week. We were lucky. We had a roof over our head and food in our bellies, even if it were onion stew, most days." Now, it's 1974 and I ask my granddaughter for a pop at the lumber yard. "50 cents for a 16 ounce bottle of pop. What's wrong with prices these days? I can remember 10 cents a pop."
The Effect of the Great Depression on National and Individual Morale The Great Depression of the 1930’s was an era of hopelessness and fear for many. Coming soon after the prosperous Coolidge era, the Depression affected a nation of people who had based their self esteem around their ability to work and provide well for their families (Clements, page 67 - 69). Individuals and families had to contend not only with an existence that pushed people close to suicide and starvation, but a total loss of self worth and the haunting memories of the cars, radios and relatively luxurious lives they would have led five years previously.
The Great Depression often seems very distant to people of the 21st century. This article is a good reminder of potential problems that may reoccur. The article showed in a very literal way the idea that a depression can bring a growing country to its knees. The overall ramifications of the event were never discussed in detail, but the historical significance is that people's lives were put on hold while they tried to struggle through an extremely difficult time.
The Great Depression is a time in the history of the United States that people have learned and gained knowledge from. Its harsh times and conflicts have been written about in books, seen in movies, talked about on radios, and told to families throughout the generations. Seeing how life was during the 1930s in the movie, The Cinderella Man, was a great eye opener to how the people of this time truly survived and kept their true humanity in times of havoc. The time of the 1930s should be an inspiration to the nation and cause many to do well and live life smart and prosperous.
During the 1930’s the Stock Market crashed causing millions of people to go unemployed putting most people in extreme poverty or homeless. This has made life for teenagers difficult as they do not have the same entertainment teenagers have today. Music was a luxury to those who had a radio or access to instruments. A bunch of teens left their homes in search for jobs. For the exception of the rich, food was very hard to come by and they were hungry most of the time. Teens in during the Great Depression had a much harder time than most teens today.
America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems with schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school system or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement.