The Grapes Of Wrath: Connections To The Great Depression

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The Grapes of Wrath: Connections to the Great Depression

The decaying state of the American economy and the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s brought about the necessity for the United States to reconsider its attitudes and examine the long term effects of its policies concerning wide-scale socioeconomic problems that were constantly growing bigger. The Great Depression led to the creation of many new and innovative government policies and programs, along with revisions to older economic systems. However, these cost the government billions of dollars in a country that had consistently been stretching the gap between the rich and poor. This continued as the Great Depression began to change everything people had grown old knowing, and it forced everyone to deal with dramatic alterations to their lives that left them with no options except acceptance. America then witnessed the mass migration of farmers from the Dust Bowl out to the west towards California and the required intervention by the federal government in stepping up and taking responsibility for the socioeconomic issues plaguing the disintegrating nation. This was profoundly illustrated throughout John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

The incredibly unequal distribution of wealth that took place throughout the 1920s managed to grow even worse during the Great Depression and the 1930s. Despite how there was technically a very small fraction of people that were financially stable, there was a gigantic underclass in the U.S. that had practically nothing. "During the worst years of the Depression, 1933-34, the overall jobless rate was twenty-five percent with another twenty-five percent of breadwinners having their wages and hours cut. Effectively, then, almost...

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...these camps were running water, decent housing, community functions, and centralized law enforcement provided by its very own occupants. It was also an employment site for businesses seeking to hire unskilled laborers. These establishments that Roosevelt created showed the nation his concern for this country's displaced workers. This program along with many others assisted the nation in recovering and eventually overpowering the great fiscal pit that it had fallen into. Roosevelt's unending concern for the wellbeing and financial security of the common folk effectively guided this country towards its escape from the Great Depression, but nevertheless, the goal was realized with the effective and organized economic employment structure that America's entry into the Second World War brought to the people.

All major quotes taken from John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath"

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