Analysis: The Great Depression

When life is going our way, people tend to forget that even when things are going our way, there is always another fall and things can take a turn for the worse. The roaring twenties was a time of fun, dancing and adventure. The great war was over and people wanted to live life to the fullest. Things like cars, homes, and other expensive items were paid for using forms credit. This reckless spending eventually led to the Stock Market Crash of 1923, the plunge in stock market prices that marked the beginning of The Great Depression. On Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, seventy-five percent of Americans lost their entire life savings in a matter of a few hours. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt needed to fix the economy, help those in need,
and prevent future depressions like this one. He created the first new deal in 1933 to fight the effects of the depression. But was this new deal a total success in repairing the American economy and spirit? The New Deal was not a success because the African Americans were not receiving help, the Farm Relief Bill made the depression worse, and people had no hope even during the new deal. During The Great depression, the majority of the New Deal programs discriminated against the African Americans. “The National Recovery Administration, for example, not only offered whites the first crack at jobs, but authorized separate and lower pay scales for blacks.” (The Digital History online textbook.) “The Federal Housing Authority refused to guarantee mortgages for blacks who tried to buy in white neighborhoods…” (The Digital History online textbook) . The African American community struggled to even find a place for their families to live. That meant that a lot of people started to set up tents in parks and actually live there. How were the unemployed supposed to get back on their feet when the odds are turned against them like they were? If they were having no help from the government then their options were extremely limited. If the New Deal programs did not benefit all citizens then how can we call it a success? The farm relief bill was part of the Agriculture Adjustment Administration's efforts to try and regulate and restore the health and flow of farms, to keep money in farmers pockets. The bill increased crop prices, increasing the amount of money that farmers got from selling their goods. It was later concluded that the bill was unsuccessful because the higher prices made it harder for people to get food. This bill was single handedly responsible for starving thousands of people. In a political cartoon of the day called “Don’t Crush Them!”, it depicts a huge steam roller with Farm Relief Bill inscribed on it. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is driving and a U.S. farmer is in the back cheering him on. They are barely missing three men running from the steam roller, they are a businessman, a taxpayer, and an ultimate consumer. They are each holding a scroll with words on them, traditional American principles, federal economy, and tested economic laws. This bill that was part of the New Deal was unconstitutional, it helped the farmers and nobody else, it just put extra strain on the already stressed American people. This also cartoon symbolizes all the harm that was being done to common Americans and the economy itself because of the farm relief bill. While the new deal was in action you may think that this made people feel better, to see hope in the future, to maybe think that things were finally going to get better now.
But that was not the case. One of the most popular songs of the depression was called “No Depression in Heaven”. “Out here the hearts of men are failing, For theses are the latter days we know, The Great Depression now is spreading, God’s words declared it would be so” (No Depression in Heaven). This part of the song is talking about how the American people was losing hope, happiness, and other feelings of the heart because of how bad the Depression was. And the Depression was still spreading, it was getting even worse. This song was written in 1936, the first new deal was put into action in 1933. All of theses things were happening three years into the new deal and yet Americans still had no hope for the future. The song says that a lot of people are dying from starvation, and people were working so hard all day but they still couldn’t get payed at the end of the day. Widows were still mourning the loss of their husbands from World War 1. Women at this time still could not get a proper job, so how were they supposed to survive and take care a family? It was a constant cycle of toil and struggle just to survive day to day. The song also states that it would just be easier to die than to go through what they were every day because there is no depression in heaven. So if the New Deal programs were so helpful and effective, then why did Americans have feelings and struggles such as this? The New Deal failed to lift the failing spirits of American
citizens. The New Deal was not a success because the African Americans were not receiving help, the Farm Relief Bill made the depression worse, and people had no hope even during the new deal. African americans were discriminated, and unable to get help from new deal programs. The Farm Relief Bill ended up starving the people. And there was no hope in the American heart, even though the New Deal was in action. This is really significant because we need to understand what things were happening during this time period and how government actions made the situation worse so we can avoid similar issues in our day.