Bruce Springsteins I Aint Got No Home (In This World Anymore) and the Great Depression
The 1930s was the time of The Great Depression, which resulted in drastic changes. There were many people who starved trying to find employment, while many others did what was possible to survive a little longer. Everyone across the United Stated had tough times; especially families who tried to stick together to survive. American families were left out on the streets because they couldn’t pay their debts. Most had no other choice than to split up to find their own ways of surviving. The circumstances inspired many who wrote songs and poems.
The song ‘I Aint Got No Home (In This World Anymore)’ by Bruce Spingsteen was originally written by Woody Guthrie during the times of the Great Depression. This song is about a man who is forced to become a migrant worker. He lost his farm because of the drought that got to his crops. He couldn’t come up with enough money to pay the bankers who showed up at his door. He has six children who are scattered around trying to survive and a wife who died. He is a man who works when he finds work traveling from town to town.
This song has many references to the conditions of many people during the Great Depression. The narrator is a migrant worker, like many others during that time. He was left with out a home because of the drought that took place during the 1930s’. He finds it amusing how the ones who are gambling are the rich, and the ones...
The thirties were a time of the Great Depression. Everyone was poor. People who had had riches in abundance not one year earlier were living on the streets. It would take years for America to recover, and the road to get there was not very smooth.
Pindar, Ian. "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes." The Guardian, August 9, 2009.
The Great Depression is seen as one of the most sorrowful and desolate times in the history of the United States. This time was the longest period of recession ever seen by this nation so far. It lasted from 1929 to 1939, over ten years of complete confusion and despondency within the people. Many Americans were affected greatly by this tragic time and sacrificed much of their lives so that they and their families may have the chance to live. This act of desperation can be seen throughout the movie, The Cinderella Man, where a professional boxer, Jim Braddock, becomes crippled by the depression, both economically and spiritually. The observer can see this through the explicit cinematography of the movie and depiction of the Great Depression made by the director. However the director left out a key aspect of the happenings of the depression, the stock market crash. Perhaps, this catastrophic event was irrelevant to the plot and message of the movie, but it is important to the actual Great Depression of the United States. Furthermore, the nation of 2010 is well on its way to repeating history. There are frightening similarities between that dreadful time of the 1930’s and the present that should not be overlooked, or the United States might condemn itself back into that horrific state it has so long tried to avoid.
The Grapes of Wrath, a novel is written by John Steinbeck, sets the Great Depression as the background. When Steinbeck was young, he was a ranchman in California. He witnessed the migrant laborers who worked in the farms and he had noticed the social inequalities among different classes of people. The story he wrote is about, during the Great Depression, a poor migrant family, the Joads, encounter all kinds of difficulties when they moved from Oklahoma to California to seek for jobs and their future. Coupled with that, The English Patient , is written by the famous Canadian author Michael Ondaatj...
In conclusion, The Baker family went through a lot through the great depression, and it affected there lives in many ways that they thought it wouldn’t. This autobiography on the troubles him and his family faced during the Great Depression. During the Depression, the major problems that Baker faced through the novel were about the financial difficulties that his family endured, ending in result of his father passing away, the struggles of moving from rural life to urban life, and the lack of Medical attention around the area. During the depression, in Morrisonville there was a common occurrence as many towns people died from common illnesses like phenomena, or whooping cough. This book has much to offer to teenage readers who are interested in the story of one individual’s growth, development, and struggles of his life in the Great Depression.
Nelson, Sheila. Crisis at Home and Abroad: the Great Depression, World War II, and Beyond,
Nelson, Sheila. Crisis at Home and Abroad: the Great Depression, World War II, and beyond, 1929-1959. City: Mason Crest Publishers, 2005.
McElvaine, Robert S, ed. Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
The Great Depression America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine covers many topics of American history during the "Great Depression" through 1941. The topic that I have selected to compare to the text of American, Past and Present, written by Robert A. Divine, T.H. Breen, George M. Frederickson and R. Hal Williams, is Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States and America's president during the horrible "Great Depression".
On Tuesday October 29th 1929 the stock market crashed 15% to trigger to what we now know as the great depression. The depression hit canada hard, no one buying raw materials and all american factories located in Canada were shut down leaving the people of Canada unemployed, poor and hungry. The depression had forced people out of homes and into unemployment camps. Why did things come to this ? Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King Believed unemployment is seasonal and refused to help while so many struggled. Then elected was Bennett a rich Lawyer who knew nothing about running a country resulting in many failed plans. To end all of Canada’s responses the government raised tariffs cutting us off from the world. Though the Canadian government may have tried their responses to the great depression were inadequate and failed to bring the canadian economy back.
The years berween 1929 and 1933 were trying years for people throughout the world. Inflation was often so high money became nearly worthless. America had lost the prosperity it had known during the 1920's. America was caught in a trap of a complete meltdown of economy, workers had no jobs simply because it cost too much to ship the abundance of goods being produced. This cycle was unbreakable, and produced what is nearly universally recognized as the greatest economic collapse of all times. These would be trying years for all, but not every American faced the same challenges and hardships. (Sliding 3)
To the nations rescue, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected and provided many alternative solutions for the repair of America. Roosevelt supplied hundreds of thousands with jobs. He also had acts passed that saved banks and found solutions to protect American jobs. The beginning of World War II marked the ultimate end of the depression.
Many people during the Great Depression were deprived of basic needs. Many people also took the risk on giving gifts to those in need. This paper will be about how the characters in the novel No Promises In The Wind, gave those gifts.
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
The Great Depression was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downfall in the history of the United Sates. No event has yet to rival The Great Depression to the present day today although we have had recessions in the past, and some economic panics, fears. Thankfully the United States of America has had its shares of experiences from the foundation of this country and throughout its growth many economic crises have occurred. In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors ("The Great Depression."). In turn from this single tragic event, numerous amounts of chain reactions occurred.