HOW DID PEOPLE SURVIVE THE GREAT DEPRESSION???

go ask a homless person how they do it, that should give you a good clue, unless you own land and then you better know how to farm and shoot a gun.

IS THAT IT?

they worked hard and it sucked. Talk to your grandparents for five minutes. (or great grandparents) They will have stories

I've wondered that also. I guess there were some jobs.

My grandfather worked on the railroad and people would come by their house asking if they could work for a meal. My grand parents never turned anyone away. They had them do small jobs around the house and then my grandparents would sit down with them and give them a good meal.

THEIR DEAD

WOW NICE PEOPLE they prolly werent scared of people then ,,but people today i dont trust

Lots of gardens. My grandmother told how they would feed a family of 12 with 1 chicken - noodles, dumplings, etc.

It was pretty bad when you only got 50 or 75 cents per day.

They ate food moron. They traded their freedom and liberty for socialism and funny money.

Prozac...?

... OH! That kind of depression. LOL


Stan P.

Back then people had integrity and family values. Nowadays I am not so sure. Me thinks it will get ugly. People want to take from each other and not band together and help each other. That is the whole problem. No unity.

THE NEXT TIME WILL BE A GLOBAL DEPRESSION
You better to 'rethink' the actual consequences of what's coming.

Make a deduction: they didn't have McDonald's and other fast food joints then, none or very little processed food. More people lived on the land as opposed to city. Animal transportation. Communities were close knit; everyone looked out for and helped one another. You can add to this list by just thinking about your own question.

The 'Great Depression' was a period in United States History when business was poor and many people were out of work.

The Great Depression began in October 1929, when the stock market in the United States dropped rapidly. Thousands of investors lost large sums of money and many were wiped out, lost everything. The 'crash' led us into the Great Depression. The ensuing period ranked as the longest and worst period of high unemployment and low business activity in modern times. Banks, stores, and factories were closed and left millions of Americans jobless, homeless, and penniless. Many people came to depend on the government or charity to provide them with food.

The Depression became a worldwide business slump of the 1930's that affected almost all nations. It led to a sharp decrease in world trade as each country tried to protect their own industries and products by raising tariffs on imported goods. Some nations changed their leader and their type of government. In Germany, poor economic conditions led to the rise to power of the dictator Adolf Hitler. The Japanese invaded China, developing industries and mines in Manchuria. Japan claimed this economic growth would relieve the depression. This militarism of the Germans and Japanese eventually led to World War II (1939-1945).

In the United States, President Herbert Hoover held office when the Great Depression began. The economy continued to slump almost every month. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President in 1932. Roosevelt's 'new deal' reforms gave the government more power and helped ease the depression. The Great Depression ended as nations increased their production of war materials at the start of World War II. This increased production provided jobs and put large amounts of money back into circulation.

The Great Depression (1929-1939)
Although the United States had experienced several depressions before the stock market crash on October 27, 1929, none had been as severe nor as long lasting before "Black Thursday" struck Wall Street. At first, economists and leaders thought this was a mild bump, perhaps merely a correction of the market, or in any case, no worse than the recession the nation suffered after World War I.

Numbers soon proved the optimists incorrect. The depression steadily worsened. By spring of 1933, when FDR took the oath of office, unemployment had risen from 8 to 15 million (roughly 1/3 of the non-farmer workforce) and the gross national product had decreased from $103.8 billion to $55.7 billion. Forty percent of the farms in Mississippi were on the auction block on FDR's inauguration day. Although the depression was world wide, no other country except Germany reached so high a percentage of unemployed. The poor were hit the hardest. By 1932, Harlem had an unemployment rate of 50 percent and property owned or managed by blacks fell from 30 percent to 5 percent in 1935. Farmers in the Midwest were doubly hit by economic downturns and the Dust Bowl. Schools, with budgets shrinking, shortened both the school day and the school year.

The breadth and depth of the crisis made it the Great Depression.

No one knew how best to respond to the crisis. President Hoover believed the dole would do more harm than good and that local governments and private charities should provide relief to the unemployed and homeless. By 1931, some states began to offer aid to local communities. FDR, then governor of New York, worked with Harry Hopkins and Frances Perkins to begin a direct work relief program. This helped only a very few. By 1932, only 1/4 of unemployed families received any relief. In 1932, only 1.5 percent of all government funds were spent on relief and averaged about $1.67 per citizen. Cities, which had to bear the brunt of the relief efforts, teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. By 1932, Cook County (Chicago) was firing firemen, police, and teachers (who had not been paid in 8 months). Breadlines and Hoovervilles (homeless encampments) appeared across the nation.

Those hurt the most were more stunned than angry. Many sank into despair and shame after they could not find jobs. The suicide rates increased from 14 to 17 per 100,000. Protest that did occur was local, not national: "farm holidays," neighbors of foreclosed farmers refusing to bid on farms at auction, neighbors moving evicted tenants' furniture back in, and local hunger marches.

Resistance to protest often turned violent. In 1932, four members of the Dearborn hunger march were shot and killed when 1,000 soldiers accompanied by tanks and machine guns evicted veterans living in the Bonus Army camp in Washington, D.C.

FDR, after assuming the presidency, promoted a wide variety of federally funded programs aimed at restoring the American economy, helping relieve the suffering of the unemployed, and reforming the system so that such a severe crisis could never happen again. However, while the New Deal did help restore the GNP to its 1929 level and did introduce basic banking and welfare reforms, FDR refused to run up the deficits that ending the depression required. Only when the federal government imposed rationing, recruited 6 million defense workers (including women and African Americans), drafted 6 million soldiers, and ran massive deficits to fight World War II did the Great Depression finally end.

In the 30s more than 60% of the people in America lived on small family farms. My Mother said that they really didn't see much change during those years. Life was always hard but they had what they needed. I,d suggest that as many of you as possible try to figure out how you can get together with others to do community gardening.

Go rent the movie "The Grapes of Wrath".

Here's an excerpt from Wiki on the book:
"Rose of Sharon's baby is stillborn; however, Ma Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. In the end, Rose of Sharon commits the only act in the book that is not futile: she breast feeds a starving man, still trying to show hope in humanity after her own negative experience. This final act is said to illustrate the spontaneous mutual sharing that will lead to a new awareness of collective values."

My grandparents said that families moved in with each other, with grandparents, parents and adult children and their children living in same house as room permitted. They lived in a city but the cities weren't all asphalt & cement then. And there was bare land between many of the cities with small farms to barter or buy things from.

They had a large depression garden and they kept a few chickens and rabbits, etc. There were short-term jobs (like for a day or two) and usually at least one adult from the household would be able to get some cash ahead every week or two.

The older adults owned the house so no house payment which was not uncommon then. Expenses were different - no big house payments, insurance payments, car payments, credit cards, etc.

Nowadays it would be harder to survive - at least for those in the cities. Plus families don't seem to be as close now as they were then.

My mother and 9 other siblings survived it. They had a rural small farm in Georgia and raised most of what they ate. What else they needed they bartered for with the farm produce. She said it didn't seem like a big deal, times were always hard for them but they got by.

One saw lots of hobos on streets and roads. I was born in 1938, and I saw some walking down highways.

Have you ever had a lard sandwich?

We have a transient society now. Unlike anytime before 1950(and the highway/interstate system) where people knew each other and actually cared.

Now it's all about #1.

But this time ... many will not survive.

In the 30s lding all the we had a bit of freedom,That is we associated with who we pleased and was not a waring nation.
We were poor from the bank keeping money out of circulation
In South Texas we lived off the land,We grew a garden and ate the things off the fields we could not sell as people just had no money.We had oranges and fish from the river,Poke salad grew along the canel banks and there were frogs who's legs we could eat.Chickens were kept in a coop.Friers we ate on Sundays.with dumplings .Three layed cakes were made with chocolate frostings,Home
made ice cream from a hand turned crank. as we had no electricty,bringing ice in a block from town with ice cream salt to make it colder
Toilet paper was a sears catalog
We played cards and chinese checkers,Told ghost stories and sang songs,Played games in the yard after dark,studied our school lessons with a kerosene lamp.and cooked with one,

My Grandmother and me walked to the neighbors on Saturdays to hear the Grand old opera,as ey were the only ones with a radio, Truck drivers were the heros of the day,and pretty girl
dressed as they did
I wanted to become an airplane pilot as they made $200 a month
We listened to Roosevelt's lies and he got us into the war by putting an embargo on Japan after they signed the Tri Lateral treaty with Italy and Germany, which saved Communism

My grandma mentioned some things she saw and went through during the great depression.

They lived near the river and every day the banks were crowded with people fishing. It was crowded day and night, both winter and summer. People would walk for miles up and down the banks looking for the schools of fish that got harder and harder to find.

Deer disappeared. The farmers and hobos shot them clean out by the second year of the depression.

At night, all the farmers fields filled with people stealing what little crop was left after the harvest.

The homeless banded together and built shanty towns to live in or they traveled around looking for work anywhere they could find it. Children went job hunting as well.

It was very common for people to grow food in their own gardens back then. They cooked their food from scratch and knew how to stretch it. They were frugal and quite self-sufficient in many ways. They also lived in tight-knit communities, where people took care of each other and looked out for each other.

And they were naive and trusting, which is why FDR was able to take them for a ride.

They focused on survival instead of self-gratification. Also, back then, there was a MUCH larger percent of people who were living on self-sustaining farms.

They lived with many people in the same house, and usually the house was bought and paid for.

Not a lot of people even considered owning a car...it wasn't until after WWII that people started buying cars en masse. Expenses were a lot less.

People used hand-me-down clothes. I remember my Grandma was very good at re-making clothes...she would take an old coat and turn it into a child's coat, or remake one child's old dress into a completely different dress. I still have her old Singer sewing machine :)

Food was stretched by making soup out of it. Lots of potatoes, little meat. They baked from scratch.

I was born in 1948, but I still remember how frugal my Grandma was, and my parents too. My parents are still frugal...not like we baby boomers who grew up in the throw-away society.

We always had a garden, too. My dad planted the whole back yard in corn, green beans, tomatoes, squash. Yum!

My grandmother lived with her twin sister and her mom in the country in the deep south and had some land so they grew their own food and picked cotton for money.

When I think of my great grandmother, I remember this 5' woman with a character that would tower over anyone I know in this age. She was not really a very nice woman, but an incredibly humble servant to God and a survivor- right out of the Grapes of Wrath. You just don't meet people like that in this day and age. I'm amazed at the idea I have her genes in me. Likewise my Great Grandfather, who is actually a baby killer- not something I'm proud of. Strange brew moves through my veins.

NO they aren't...

[link to www.nderf.org]