Great Depression – What Is It?
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010The great depression was a time of economic and social devastation that began in the United States with the Wall Street stock exchange collapse on the 29th October 1929, a day which came to be known as Black Tuesday.
The great depression facts, record that these poorest and hardest of times which were to follow, would last for many years, until the beginning of the Second World War, at which time many nations began pouring huge sums of money into the new war driven economy, eventually bringing the unprecedented worldwide slump to a end.
What mustn’t be forgotten of course is that in those days, there was no social support. If you were penniless and hungry, there was nowhere or no-one to turn to. It was under such circumstances as these that one of the most shocking depression statistics emerged, that 50% of all children did not have adequate food, shelter, clothing, or medical care.
For most persons, too poor to put food on the table, the only choice was the soup kitchen, where persons waiting all day for a bowl on meager, thin, watery soup. People were reduced to hunting among the dustbins for something to eat.
Industry ground to a standstill, almost. Since people did not have money, they could not afford to purchase anything. In the absence of income from sales, companies have been forced to lay off workers and, finally, go into liquidation.
It’s African-Americans that were always first to lose their livelihoods. For those who have had the chance to stay in work, wages have been dreadfully low. Depression pictures show that the standard wage of a farm worker was $ 216 per year, while a doctor earned $ 3822.29.
At the beginning of the great depression, the President was Herbert Hoover and as it can currently be imagined, he wasn’t a popular man that being considered by many for doing too little and not managing to avoid the crisis.
Hoover’s name was taken and used to nickname several consequences of the time like the settlements or shanty towns that sprang up everywhere being called “Hoovervilles”; or the soup “cocktail” that starving people would make when they went into a restaurant, diverted the waitresses attention, made a soup from whatever was left on the table tops (water, tomato sauce, salt, pepper) and drink it while her attention was still diverted, a concoction that came to be known as “Hoover Soup”. A pitiful but true great depression fact.
