effect of the great depression

Effect of the great depression

It is difficult to measure the human cost of the Great Depression . The material hardships were bad enough . Men and women lived on lean-tos made of scrap wood and metal ,and families went without meat and fresh vegetables for months,existing on a diet of soup and beans. The

psychological burden eas even greater:Americans suffered through year after year of grinding poverty with no letup in sight. The unemployed stood in line for hours waiting for relief

checks ,veterans sold apples or pencils on street corners ,their manhood ---once prized sp highly by the nation ---now in question . People left the city for the countryside but found no salvation on the farm. Crops rotted in the fields because prices were too low to make harvesting

worthwhile ;sheriffs fended off angry crowds as banks foreclosed long overdue mortgages on once prosperous farms.

Few escaped the suffering . African Americans who had left the poverty of the rural South for factory jobs in the North were among the first to be laid off. Mexican Americans ,who had flowed in to replace European immigrants ,met with competition from angry citizens,now willing to do stoop labor in the fields and work as track layers on the railroads. Immigration officials used technicalities to halt the flow across the Rio Drande and even to reverse it;nearly a half million Mexicans were deported in the 1930s ,including families with children born in the United States. The poor --- black,brown,and white---survived because they knew better than most Americans how to exist in poverty . They stayed in bed in cold weather,both to keep warm and to avoid

unnecessary burning up of calories; they patched their shoes with pieces of rubber from discarded tires ,heated only the kitchens of their homes,and ate scraps of food that others would reject. The middle class, which had always lived with high expectations ,was hit hard . Professionals and white-collar workers refused to ask for charity even while their families went without

food ;one New York dentist and his wife turned on the gas and left a note saying ,"We want to get out of the way before we are forced to accept relief money ." people who fell behind in their mortgage payments lost their homes and them faced eviction when they could noy pay the rent. Health care declined. Middle-class people stopped going to doctors and dentists regularly,unable to make the required cash payment in advance for services rendered.

Even the well-to-do were affected,giving up many of their former luxuries and weighed down with guilt as they watched former friends and business associations join the ranks of the

impoverished . "my father lost everything in the Depression "because an all-too-familiar refrain among young people who dropped out of college.

Many Americans sought escape in movement . Men ,boys, and some women ,rode the rails in search of jobs, hopping freights to move south in the winter or west in the summer. On the

Missouri Pacific alone , the number of vagrants increased form just over 13,000 in 1929 to nearly 200,000 in 1931 . One town in the Southwest hired special policemen to keep vagrants form

leaving the boxcars . Those who became tramps had to keep on the move, but they did find a sense of community in the hobo jungles that sprang up along the major railroad routes . Here a man could find a place to eat and sleep ,and people with whom to share his misery . Louis Banks ,a black veteran , told interviewer Studs Terkel what these informal camps ere like:

Black and white , it didn't make any difference who you are ,'cause everybody was poor. All friendly ,sleep in a jungle .We used to take a big pot and cook food, cabbage ,meat and beans all together . We all set together ,we made a tent . Twenty-five or thirty would be out on the side of the rail, white and colored: They didn't have no mothers or sisters ,they didn't have no home ,they

were dirty ,they had overalls on, they didn't have no food ,they didn't have anything.

大萧条对人们的影响

大萧条对人们造成的影响无法估量。物质上的苦难已非常深重。男男女女都住在破木板废铁皮搭起的披棚里，家家户户数月吃不上肉和新鲜蔬菜，只能用清汤和豆子填肚子。更为沉重的是心理上的负担：美国人在极度的贫困中煎熬，年复一年，前景渺茫。失业工人排除数小时等待救济金，退伍老兵则在街角叫卖苹果、铅笔。曾几何时，他们雄姿英发，1气概非凡，全国上下，无不赞叹；现在，这种气概不知到哪里去了。人们纷纷离开城市，投奔农村，但是无济于事，农村并不救世。农产品价格过低，采摘得不偿失，农作物全都白白烂在地里；许多曾经繁荣富足的农场，因长期拖欠抵押贷款，而被银行没收，愤怒的农民欲夺回财产，但却遭到了警方的阻拦。

这场劫难几乎无人幸免。非洲裔美国人逃离了穷苦的南方农村，在北方工厂找到了工作，却成为第一批被解雇的工人。墨西哥裔美国人曾大批涌入，以求取代欧洲移民，现在却面临与愤怒的本地公民竞争的局面，这些美国人现在都愿意干卑微的农活，或者去铺设铁轨。为了阻止墨西哥人跨过格兰德河进入美国，移民官员采取了各种手段，甚至将他们遣返回国；20世纪30年代，将近五十万墨西哥人被驱逐出境，其中包括那些在美国生了孩子的家庭。

为场苦难中，穷人——无论黑人、棕种人还是白人——都幸存下来，因为他们比大多数美国人更懂得如何在贫困中生存。天气寒冷时，他们呆在床上，既暖和也减少不必要的热量消耗；他们用废弃轮胎的橡胶碎片做鞋子，只在厨房里生火取暖，用别人不吃的菜

皮残渣果腹。

生活期望总是很高的中产阶级，在林萧条中也遭遇重创。专业人士和白领员工即使全家嗷嗷待哺，也不愿接受救济；一位纽约的牙医和妻子开煤气自杀前，留下了这样的字条，“与其被迫接受救济，还不如离开这个世界。”那些无法按期支付按揭月供的人，先是失去了自己的房子，而后付不起房租，就给逐出门外。医疗条件也每况愈下。中产阶级没有现金预付门诊费用，不再定期看病。

大萧条中，即便富人也深受影响，不得不放弃之前的许多奢华，眼巴巴地看着先前好友、生意伙伴一个个加入赤贫的行列，郁郁不乐，自责无力相助。“我父亲在大萧条中一无所有了”，成了掇学大学生们再熟悉不过的口头禅。

许多美国人辗转流浪，寻找生计。男 …… 此处隐藏：3507字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……