Have you ever wondered what it was like in the time of the “Great Depression”, or so called the “Dust bowl”. Well, I have, I have been asking myself how did everyone feel during this time. Hi i’m Dianna a mother sitting on the front steps of a migrant camp. I have two kids whose names are Sasha and Daniel. Now, the setting is in California, were I went after people couldn’t afford things after something big happened The Great Depression.
Today and ever since that tragedy I feel like a nobody. Everyone calls us “Okies”. All I have is my kids, and that’s it, they are my only hope. They help me when I need the support. Moving on,unfortunately, we have to live in a migrant camp and it’s not really a fun place to stay in. It looks old and looks like it went through a tornado.It smelt really bad because we couldn’t take showers. No one brush their teeth and there was no good smell. Where was it? It was back home destroyed with everything else. We could not afford a whole lot like some people did.Sometimes I have thoughts and worry if we will even live another day, I worry if we will even have a next meal.
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It felt like torture but just never ending. I wish they could just help us and comfort us. They have no idea of what we went through.They would want us to do the same if they were in our shoes.So we would move again and again.Now that we have brought up this whole thing, let’s talk about the schools.And my goodness that was some bad news for everybody. Everyone was complaining that all or most schools in that state or city were to crowded or probably more than overcrowded. I really wish all this could end. I felt like I was dreaming an awful nightmare but I wasn’t , it felt like this nightmare came to life and tried to get
Grant Wood was a Regionalist artist who continually endeavored to capture the idyllic beauty of America’s farmlands. In 1930 he had been roaming through his hometown in Iowa searching for inspiration when he stumbled upon a house that left him spellbound. From this encounter came America’s iconic American Gothic. Not long after Wood’s masterpiece was complete the once ideal countryside and the people who tended to it were overcome by despair and suffering as the Great Depression came to be. It was a time of economic distress that affected nearly every nation. America’s stock market crashed in 1929 and by 1933 millions of Americans were found without work and consequently without adequate food, shelter, and other necessities. In 1935, things took a turn for the worst as severe winds and dust storms destroyed the southern Great Plains in the event that became known as the Dust Bowl. Farmers, who had been able to fall back on their crops during past depressions, were hit especially hard. With no work or way or other source of income, many farms were foreclosed, leaving countless families hungry and homeless. Ben Shahn, a Lithuanian-born man who had a deep passion for social injustice, captures the well-known hopelessness of the Great Depression through his photograph Rural Rehabilitation Client. Shahn and Wood use their art to depict the desperation of everyday farmers in America due to the terrors and adverse repercussions that the Great Depression incited.
The Great Depression was a tough time for most who lived through it, the Starkweather family was not excluded from the hard times. Even though they were poor, Guy and Helen Starkweather managed to make a living for themselves and their kids. The couple had seven children. Charles was the third. He had a normal childhood and a good home life. The Starkweather family made memories just like any other family wou...
One of America’s most beloved books is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. The book portrays a family, the Joads, who leave Oklahoma and move to California in search of a more prosperous life. Steinbeck’s book garnered acclaim both from critics and from the American public. The story struck a chord with the American people because Steinbeck truly captured the angst and heartbreak of those directly impacted by the Dust Bowl disaster. To truly comprehend the havoc the Dust Bowl wreaked, one must first understand how and why the Dust Bowl took place and who it affected the most. The Dust Bowl was the result of a conglomeration of weather, falling crop prices, and government policies.
Jones, Dorothy. "Sharing Memories: 1930's Life on the Farm During the Great Depression." MrDonn.Org. 28 Oct. 2007. 13 Mar. 2008 .
People had to live off of the possessions they owned and what little money they had or could earn. The determined families had to cling to their homes and way of life. Some of the things they had to endure were the drought, dust, disease and even death for almost a decade. For the families to survive free from dust storms they had to move to California, but only a quarter of the “ Dust Bowlers” did (The Drought n. pag.). People during the Great Depression didn’t really have much so most of the families from the Dust Bowl had to stay at their homes and survive the extreme dust storms.Some people think that it was the hardest to survive as a child.
Watching films from the Great Depression era today, we can see how people survived and made a living during the crisis. Everyone’s common goal was to find work and would do whatever they could to be able to provide for their families and themselves. Work could be very demanding when trying to make a pretty penny. Some ways people made a living was by working in a factory, as shown in Chaplin’s Modern Times, or in a more dangerous way of the ...
People, especially blacks, were being put out of work everywhere; the wave of depression had hit the entire country. Banks were failing, and the cities, in a desperate attempt to provide relief, were running out of money. Because President Hoover was confident that business conditions would soon improve, federal funds were not used to provide relief; relief was the responsibility of private charities. City allowances soon ran out, and there was no money left. Pennies were used to buy food and fuel. Many people went without food in order to p...
Chase, I enjoyed Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl as well, and I believe it was for reasons that you brought up as the music and photos from the era used in its production. While reading your statement about the documentary’s “emotional power” really caught my attention and reminded me of a quote from Siobhan McHugh’s article. In her article, McHugh states that the tone of a person’s voice and the way that they tell their histories is something that a paper transcript cannot convey to its audience (McHugh, 188). Your post on The Dust Bowl documentary and the oral histories used by Burns reminded me of this quote because, as you said, the use of these personal histories is supposed to strike emotion in its audience. With videos, music, and oral history
In the novel Mary Coin by Marisa Silver, we see the hardships a traveling widow with seven children can endure while trying to survive the Great Depression. Such hardships could be finding work, food a place to stay, and means of transportation. “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 workers were completely out of work. Some people starved; many others lost their farms and homes” (Smiley, 2008). During these times, making a living was hard to come, making it very difficult for people on their own to survive. A single mother with seven children to feed and care for at this time would have been extremely difficult, especially with no father
Being a kid in Oklahoma during the dust bowl wasn’t the greatest. Every morning, no matter the weather conditions, the kids would have to milk their cows, and feed all the farm animals (A Child's Life During the Dust Bowl). The walks to and from school were never easy. They would walk several miles, and it would always be very windy. Sometimes the kids would have no choice but to walk backwards because the wind was that bad.
What would life be like if most of America was unemployed, broke, and not making enough money? George and Lennie left Weed to go find work in a different place and ended up working on a ranch in Soledad for fifty dollars a month. At the ranch, there were many problems that happened. “Of Mice & Men” by John Steinbeck takes place during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, a tough time filled with loneliness and lack of education, which contributed to the conflicts in this story.
Diary Of Man During Great Depression Dear Diary I am 29 years old and I come from a lower middle class family. My ancestors came from England, but I was born in Australia. I haven't got married because I am having a hard time supporting myself let alone have a family of a few. I lost my job when the Great Depression began and I got one. about three years later.
It was one of the worst experiences I could have ever imagined.I lost my home,my job,I didn't know where I was anymore,and worst of all,I lost my family.I set out to find some survivors,but there were none to be found.All I saw was bodies.Bodies on top of bodies on top of bodies,but no one who survived.I’ve been searching for about two hours,or maybe I was hallucinating from when I was unconscious.I thought to myself “What am I going to do,I’ve got no food,no shelter,or light,and it was starting to get pretty dark.” When I thought all hope was gone,I finally found a group of survivors.
People in agriculture were hardest hit by the Depression because the 1920’s had not been kind to them anyway. Many farmers had their land and homes repossessed, as they could not afford to pay back their mortgages and loans. Furthermore, since areas in the Southern States had been over cultivated, the land became less and less fertile and a Dust Bowl arose. Many of these ruined farmers travelled to California to find any labouring work.
Rocks. The second of five children, an older sister Joan, and three little brothers Terrance, John, and Jerome, all to their parents Robert W. Hileman and Katheryn Conolly Hileman. My grandfathers’ childhood was difficult, because it was part of this depression. When he was a kid his food was rationed, his family was only allowed so much of certain items sugar, meat, butter, and other certain things. When he was twelve years old, he got a job at a deli slicing meat, he did this to help his family out, this demonstrates that even at a young age he was willing to do whatever it took to help out what with he called “the cause”, or his family.