The Great Depression and World War II Shaped My Grandma's Life
My grandma, Alma Jean, was born in 1935 in Silo, Oklahoma, just outside of Durant. Her birth certificate says she was born in Durant because Silo was too small to be considered a real town. She lived there on a farm with her parents, Orval and Maggie Dale.
It was the middle of the Great Depression, and they were a farming family at a time when it seemed like no one could make a living off the land. To supplement their income, Orval and his father worked for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). President Roosevelt set up the WPA the same year that my grandma was born (Divine 760). The WPA was similar to other work relief programs such as the CCC, PWA, CWA and NYA. All were established to provide jobs for the unemployed. However, the WPA was unique because it was the first program to also address the needs of artists, writers, and actors. These people were employed by the WPA to capture and portray the culture and events of the United States at that time (761).
As a result of the Depression, Americans learned to be resourceful. People would make clothes out of flour sacks and homes out of cardboard and metal scraps (Conlin 686). They grew gardens and hunted for their food instead of buying it at the store. Some people even sold apples in the city streets to earn money (Current 731).
One of the weirdest things about my grandma is that she likes to eat squirrel brains. But it makes sense. When she was little they didn't have money to buy meat, so her dad would go hunting all the time. He'd catch jackrabbits and squirrels and whatever else he could find, and that's what they ate. So my grandma grew up eating squirrels (and their brains). It was normal to h...
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... of the war. The day the war ended she was in school. When they found out it was over, they let all the kids go home early. Everywhere she went, she said she could feel a sense of relief. Everyone was happy and excited.
My grandma grew up and married Henry Fordge. They now have six grown children and a lifetime of wonderful memories. Her first memories, though, were shaped by two of the greatest events in American history: The Great Depression and World War Two.
Works Cited
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Divine, Robert A., ed. America Past and Present. Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1987.
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George Browm Tindall, David Emory Shi. American History: 5th Brief edition, W. W. Norton & Company; November 1999
Edward, Rebecca and Henretta, James and Self, Robert. America A Concise History. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012.
Goldfield, David. The American Journey A History of the United States. New Jersey: Pearson 2011
3. Divine, Breen, Fredrickson, Williams, eds., America Past and Present Volume II: since 1865 sixth edition (New York: Longman 2002).
Boyer,Paul S. Editor, the Oxford Guide to United States History, New York Oxford University Press, 2001
Wheeler, William Bruce, and Susan D. Becker. Discovering the American past: a look at the evidence. 6th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007.
Williams, D. R., & Jackson, P. (2014, April 1). Health Affairs. Social Sources Of Racial Disparities In Health. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/2/325.short
Divine, Robert A. America past and Present. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education/Longman, 2013. 245. Print.
When Dali was born in Spain, in 1904, Matisse’s masterpiece Luxe calme et volupté was shown at the first exhibition of the Fauves group. Four years before that Freud’s publication, The Interpretation of Dreams, and around this time Albert Einstein discovered relativity. Einstein’s relativity composed with Plank’s quantum quark theory destroyed the structure of the now out dated Newtonian theories. With the plexus of art and science making quick advances they were destined to collide, and with the surrealists firm approach to the scientific method, it’s seems simple to concur that the studies of Einstein and other strong nuclear physicists would have influenced the group. Looking in Dali’s Persistence of Memory and expounding on the w...
Eibling, Harold H., et al., eds. History of Our United States. 2nd edition. River Forest, Ill: Laidlaw Brothers, 1968.
Boorstin, Daniel J., and Brooks M. Kelley. A History of the United States. N.p.: Prentice-Hall, 2002. Print.
I interviewed my grandmother, Faye Gledhill, about her life during and after the Great Depression. She was born in 1930 in Alabama. She lived with her parents and three siblings, two sisters and one brother, in a very small house in a mill town.
Amy Gahran, a media consultant exploring communication in the technology era, writes about how cell phones are significant. She feels that cell phones have changed our lives by providing “…vital services and human connections…offer new hope, even through simple broadcast text messages” (Gahran). Gahran is insisting that cell phones allow us to learn news quickly, connect with safety, and can even fight crime through video recordings (Gahran). In addition, she feels that the overall benefits of owning a cell phone outweigh any negatives. This somewhat challenges the ideas presented by Rosen because it points out more benefits of cell phones. In “Our Cell Phones, Ourselves” Rosen mentions that although cell phones indeed connect us with safety, they can often lead to a sense of paranoia. To expand, she writes that parents who give children a cell phone for security purposes, develop a paranoid sense of their community and lose trust in “social institutions” (Rosen). In making this comment, Rosen argues that although cell phones may be beneficial, they can change the way we view our world. Without a cell phone, many individuals feel vulnerable, as if their phone protects them from all possible dangers that they may encounter. In fact, a Rutgers University professor challenged his students to power off their phones for 48 hours and report back with their experience (Rosen). Many felt almost lost without it and one young women described the feeling “…like I was going to get raped if I didn’t have my cell phone in my hand” (Rosen). In reality, having a cell phone will not save a person’s life in all situations. Although many, including Gahran, feel a phone is a vital tool, it has changed how we feel about the world around us and how vulnerable we feel without a phone in
The Great Depression touched people at every race and income level. It seemed no one was exempt from the emotional and economic toll of the downturn. Lives were turned upside down, and many did not know how to cope. With the financial collapse, kids lost their college funds, and families lost their homes. Families had to resort to making shelter any way they could. Communities were erected in almost every state that consisted of shelters made of crates and metal sheets; these communities were known as “Hoovervilles” (Leuchtenburg, pg. 251). Others would seek refuge in caves, subways, and under bridges (Leuchtenburg, pg. 252). The life savings of many were lost before anyone could comprehend what was happening.
...in the 1970’s and shows no signs of slowing down. The opportunities and possibilities this technology has provided are endless and are on a constant rise. Cell phones have provided economic growth and millions of jobs. This technology has come with its own share of moral issues, but nothing that can’t be prevented by teaching awareness and by using caution when utilizing a cell phone. The positives of this technology has created far outweigh the negative side effects, and in my opinion the social impact this technology has had on this world has been nothing short of extraordinary.