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Great depression in America
Effects on the us after the great depression
Effects on the us after the great depression
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The Harvest Gypsies
In essence, the Harvest Gypsies was written as a documentary elucidating on the lives of American immigrants into California in search of employment that would help feed their families. The low-income families would work for minimal wages as there were plenty of laborers in the town because of increased immigration. Despite the existence of high wages that could be received from employment for instance harvesting crops, the neighboring towns would not match the extent of labor supply in such a time. Understandably, this period was marked by great depression, affecting poor and rich individuals across the country (Steinbeck and Charles 1998). Due to such, the native poor had to migrate to other states, for instance, California,
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Further, during the great depression, there were reduced resources available for budgetary allocation hence resources collected would only be used to finance necessary government operations while development projects would be postponed for a later date when the economy had recovered from the recession. The mass migration into California has affected the economic performance of the region for instance by reduction of wages, quality of healthcare services, and sanitation (Migration.ucdavis.edu, 2003). Further, there was increased deterioration of social factors for example increased insecurity in regions densely populated by the immigrants and prostitution. Those who did not want to leave their homes would be forced by banks since many lacked finances to pay for loans and mortgages. Besides, the banks offered high rates for loans hence many had no access to such since they lacked collateral that would be used to secure the loans. However, the Fed would have taken various steps to help the immigrants reduce poverty levels as well elevate their living
The case of R. v. Krymowski was around hate speech against the Roma people, also known as the “Gypsies”. A protest was staged by 25 neo-Nazis and other people in front of the motel where the Roma refugees were staying when they were allowed into Canada in 1997. These groups of individuals held up signs in order to gain support from the whole community to extradite/get rid of all the Gypsies who have immigrated. They eventually started getting assistance from a large group of people including public officials, police officers, members of the press and etc. Along with this were newspaper articles which were being published criticising the Roma people saying how they treated their wives and even their daughters unequally compared to the men in the family. They also believed that the Roma’s educated their children how to steal. About 3 weeks into the whole debate, the protesting began which last approximately over 2 hours. The Neo-Nazis held up some horrifying signs around the hotel where the Roma refugees were staying. Some signs stating “Honk if you hate Gypsies”, “Canada is not a Trash Can”, “You’re a cancer to Canada” and “G.S.T – Gypsies Suck Taxes”. However, there were no direct situations towards the Roma people during the whole period of the peaceful protest. Approximately 4 months after the protest had occurred; the police force entered numerous homes of individuals after extreme public lobbying by pressure groups. A number of people were charged with wilful promotion also known as hate crime. The Crown attempted to prove that the people that took place in the protest violated the Criminal Code by having hatred towards an identifiable group of people and tried to establish that the Neo-Nazis along w...
In the Roaring Twenties, people started buying household materials and stocks that they could not pay for in credit. Farmers, textile workers, and miners all got low wages. In 1929, the stock market crashed. All of these events started the Great Depression. During the beginning of the Great Depression, 9000 banks were closed, ending nine million savings accounts. This lead to the closing of eighty-six thousand businesses, a European depression, an overproduction of food, and a lowering of prices. It also led to more people going hungry, more homeless people, and much lower job wages. There was a 28% increase in the amount of homeless people from 1929 to 1933. And in the midst of the beginning of the Great Depression, President Hoover did nothing to improve the condition of the nation. In 1932, people decided that America needed a change. For the first time in twelve years, they elected a democratic president, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Immediately he began to work on fixing the American economy. He closed all banks and began a series of laws called the New Laws. L...
Steinbeck meets his standard by celebrating the migrant workers’ drive and sense of community in the face of the Great Depression. The Joad family and many others, are dedicated to conquering all odds: “[t]hus they changed their social life–changed as in the whole universe only man can change” (Steinbeck 196). There are no other options available for these tenant families than to take the trek to California in hopes of finding work. The fears they once had about droughts and floods now lingered with
More and more health-conscious individuals are scrutinizing the source of the food their family consumes. However, even the most conscientious consumer is not fully aware of the exhaustive efforts and struggle to get a juicy, ripe strawberry or that plump tomato in the middle of winter, even in Florida. These foods are harvested and picked mostly by seasonal and migrant farm workers. Migrant workers hail, in large part, from Mexico and the Caribbean, and their families often travel with them. Migrant farm workers must endure challenging conditions so that Americans can have the beautiful selection of berries, tomatoes, and other fresh foods often found at places like a farmer’s market or a traditional super market. Seasonal and migrant farm workers suffer a variety of health problems as a result of their constant exposure to stress, the elements, and chemicals such as pesticides. They are paid minimal wages and are expected to work long hours of strenuous labor for pennies on the dollar per piece or per hour. The migrant families are expected to live in substandard quarters and transported to various work sites in unsafe transportation. The fresh fruits and vegetables consumers purchase with little thought reach supermarkets at a cost that is not reflected in the retail price. This cost is ultimately absorbed by farm workers in Florida and other areas throughout the country, who are among the poorest of American workers.
During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the depression, many Americans spoke their minds through pen and paper. Many criticized Hoover’s policies of the early Depression and praised the Roosevelts’ efforts. Each opinion about the causes and solutions of the Great Depression are based upon economic, racial and social standing in America.
In the early 1900’s there was a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants coming to the eastern shores of America. Many were pulled to America because of its economic opportunity, freedom, need for labor and its beautiful country. Immigrants were excited to come to America and were pushed from their home countries because of food shortages, overpopulation, war and political instability. This was going on in an important era in American history called the “gilded age”. It was a time of economic growth, and industrialization but also had high percentages of poverty mainly in urban environments. The majority of the immigrants intended to advance out west but actually settled in the eastern cities. In the book The Jungle, Jargis and his family moved to the Americas and hoped to live the “American Dream” but it was the exact opposite when they arrived. Jurgis, his wife Ona, and the rest of the Lithuanian family struggled with working conditions, living conditions, health problems, and maintaining a stable workplace. They were all dealt with disgusting conditions in the boarding houses and a brutal working environment in Packingtown. In 1905, when the book was written, there were very little government regulations, especially in the meat packing industry, which led to unsafe working conditions and sanitation issues.
The Mexican Migrant Farm Workers’ community formed in Southern California in the 20th century because of two factors that came together: farming emphasized by migrations like the Okie farmers from the East and Mexicans “imported” to the U.S. because of the need for cheap labor as a replacement for Americans during World War II. The migrant labor group formed after an already similar group in the U.S had been established in California, the American farm workers from the East, known as the Okies. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s caused the movement of the Okies to the West and was followed by the transition from American dominant farm labor to Mexican migrant labor. The Okies reinforced farming in California through the skills they took with them, significant to the time period that Mexicans arrived to California in greater numbers. However, the community was heightened by World War II from 1939 to 1945, which brought in immigrants to replace Americans that left to fight in the battlefields.
The social setting of the novel is also important, as it could later explain characters attitudes towards other people. It is set in the U.S. in the 1930s; this is the time of the Great Depression. This was a result of the First World War. It affected the rich and poor alike, factory workers and farmers, bankers and stockbrokers. In short, it affected everyone; no one was left untouched. But of all the people hurt, farmers were the worst off. John Steinbeck chose to write about farmers hoping that Americans would recognize their troubles and correct the situation. The great depression is known to be the worst economic disaster in the U.S history. For this reason the depression caused many people to change their ideas about the government and economy.
The Great Depression was felt worldwide, some countries more than others. During this time many Americans had to live in poor conditions. In the United states, 25 percent of the workers and 37 percent of all nonfarm workers lost their job(Smiley 1). Unemployment rates had increased to a 24.9 percent during 1933(Shmoop 1). Unable to pay mortgages, many families lost their homes. The cause of this was the Stock Market crash in 1929. Many investors of the stock market panicked and sold all their stocks. The results of this include frightened Americans withdrawing all their saving causing and hoarding it in their homes many banks to shut down and less money to circulate in the economy. Although the economy had taken a dramatic blow, there was hope. A new program was administered by the government to help people suffering from the depression. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) program helped improve lives of Americans affected by the Great Depression.
Unemployment plagued America throughout the 1930's. The stock market crash of 1929 changed the lives of Americans forever. This began the era that we know as The Great Depression. Within three years the low wages that Americans had been receiving just was not cutting it. Unemployment was reaching record numbers. It was 50 percent or more in many places. There simply were not enough jobs or money to go around. Depression was becoming a way of life. People were living out of their cars, cardboard boxes and moving in with relatives that were slightly luckier than they were.
The speculation and the resulting stock market crash acted as the trigger for the already unstable United States economy. Due to the maldistribution of wealth and the unstable economy of the 1920’s, the nation headed into a decade of trouble. In response to its economic difficulties, the United States set up even higher trade barriers with other nations, causing more trouble within the nation. Many of the working class lost their jobs, and since these people did not have savings, they were in big trouble. Unemployment grew to 13 million by 1932 as the country quickly spiraled into a catastrophe. The Great Depression had begun due to the maldistribution of wealth, a bad economy based on over confidence, and the irresponsible erratic of the “bull” stock market.
The migrants came from the midwest, in search of a job. The foreign workers came from different countries, such as China, Japan, Mexico, and the Philippines. The demand for peon workers was increasing dramatically, foreign workers were just what the farmers needed. The foreign workers were also treated much worse than the migrants. They worked for little pay, but there was not really another way they could get money. The migrants were paid more, possibly because they are foreign born. When foreign workers came to the United States, they had to adapt to the languages, traditions, wages, etc. As for the migrant workers, they were raised in the United States, so they have a better understanding of how to live. Foreign workers had a very poor standard of living and often faced discrimination. In The Harvest Gypsies, the first sentence of the sixth article is, “ The history of California’s importation and treatment of foreign labor is a disgraceful picture of greed and cruelty.” Steinbeck had a strong belief that foreign workers were treated different from migrants, which is true. Another example is when the article talks about how the whites could not compete with the foreign workers anymore. “ Mexicans were imported in large number, and the standard of living they were capable of maintaining depressed the wages for farm labor to a point where the white could not compete.” This quote is saying that the wages and standard of living got so low, that whites gave up on trying to get a job in the fields. Some may say that the migrants and foreign workers were treated very similar, but this is untrue. They both had to live in very poor conditions, but the foreign workers had it much harder than the
---. The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath. Charles Wollenberg, ed. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1988.
A major drought, over-cultivation, and a country suffering from one of the greatest depressions in history are all it took to displace hundreds of thousands of Midwesterners and send them, and everything they had, out west. The Dust Bowl ruined crops all across the Great Plains region, crops that people depended on for survival. When no food could be grown and no money could be made, entire families, sometimes up to 8 people or more, packed up everything they had and began the journey to California, where it was rumored that jobs were in full supply. Without even closing the door behind them in some cases, these families left farms that had been with them for generations, only to end up in a foreign place where they were neither welcomed nor needed in great quantity. This would cause immense problems for their futures. It is these problems that author John Steinbeck spent a great deal of his time studying and documenting so that Americans could better understand the plight of these migrant farmers, otherwise known as "Okies." From touring many of these "Hoovervilles" and "Little Oklahomas" (pg. v) Steinbeck was given a firsthand look at the issues and hardships these migrant workers faced on a daily basis. With the help of Tom Collins, manager of a federal migrant labor camp, Steinbeck began a "personal and literary journey" (pg. v), revealing to the world the painful truth of these "Okies" in his book Harvest Gypsies.
The novel focuses on the negative aspects of capitalism and sheds a positive light on communism. Steinbeck proves that there are many problems in capitalism with the way the migrants suffered during the era of the Great Depression. The economic slump, which many people assume affected the urban populations, was even harsher on the migrants. Steinbeck, throughout his novel, reveals the plight of the migrant workers during the Depression and how capitalism has crushed them. He reaches out to his readers and plants the idea that the glorified capitalism in America is not what it seems, and that any path, even communism, is preferable.