Life During The Great Depression Essay

Although you probably have at least heard of the Great Depression, there are things about people, food, and entertainment you probably don’t know. People had hard lives, food was hard to get, and entertainment was one of the few things that kept people going. This paper will show how some people struggled, how people saved food and what they ate, and what people had to entertain themselves.
During the Great Depression the families suffered a lot. Marriage was not faring to well, divorce rates were decreasing only because people couldn’t pay lawyer fees, which caused desertion rates to increase and marriage rates to decrease (Source 1). About 250,000 teens left home to find a life of their own, most felt like a burden to their families or were
ashamed of being unemployed, these teens became known for “riding the rails”, because they rode around the United States on trains (Source 5).Approximately 10% of these teenagers were girls, but because some dressed as boys for protection, it was hard to tell exactly how many. The nomadic life was dangerous, hundreds of teens died or became injured on the trains, whether by being thrown by cars or crushed by shifting freight. Most teen that had jobs got payed little at a few pennies an hour, but often there were no jobs. Some teenagers left in hope for adventure, but most were driven by economic need and sometimes they got jobs from traveling. A large number of people moving were teenagers (Source 6). The children helped work, boys doing part-time jobs (delivering newspapers, doing janitorial tasks, and assisting as store clerks), while girls did domestic task at home, especially when their moms worked out of their home (Source 1). The death rate of children dying of undernourishment was increasing because children were losing their stamina and were on able to fight of sickness, and children in rural areas were even worse off (Source 5).
The food and food producers also suffered greatly and were not very common to see. People ate a variety crops in the field, fruit in the orchard, the animals small farms raised (chickens, eggs, hogs, and cattle) and sometimes farms had even bees for honey ;foods like Chili, Macaroni and cheese, soups, and cream chicken on biscuits were popular. One dish suppers and church potlucks were a good way to share the little food people had. In some women’s magazines and radio stations, home economist taught women to stretch their food budget by making food like cream chipped beef on waffles and casseroles (Source 3). The farm producers suffered just as much as anyone else, especially the farmers in the middle portion of the country, known as the Dust Bowl, who were experiencing a drought in 1932. Many farmers moved west to find better land and opportunities for themselves and their families. Since the farmers were already losing money because of industrialization, the Great Depression made a bad situation worse for them, it was so bad that farmers lent out land and machinery to get money. In the beginning of the Great Depression, prices of food deflated and farmers were unable to profit off of their land, so they stopped selling their products (Source 5)
Entertainment during the Great Depression was going great, it even became Hollywood’s Golden Age.
In fact many films still cherished today were created during the Great Depression, like Walt Disney films, especially The Tale of the Three Little Pigs (originally produced in 1933) and it became a part of the American culture. Other than The Tale of the Three Little Pigs comedies were popular (Source 2) Over 60 million Americans went to the movies, and many went more than once, each week. Little Shirley Temple gave hope for Americans for a better tomorrow, she played roles that righted the wrongs of the world in her many films. Americans also loved sports during the Great Depression. In 1930, More than 10 million people went to see major-league baseball games. American turned to sports and athletes to distract and inspire them, like Joe Louis, a heavy weight boxer, who became a hero who symbolized honesty and fair play to many of his fans, or Jasse Owens, a track star, who broke 3 records and won 4 gold medals at the 1932 Olympics (Source 7). The cornhuskers, a Nebraskan team, were invited to play against Stanford in the Rose Bowl, the cornhuskers played in front of the largest crowd to see a live Nebraskan game, 92,000, and Stanford won 13-7 but the Stanford coach praised the Nebraskan team, saying that the cornhuskers were the toughest team Stanford had met that year. Traditional organized games like rodeo and football were popular, especially in Nebraska, and Nebraskans are
still big fans of these sports (Source 4). Also for millions of Americans, listening to the radio became a source of almost free entertainment, it had something for every age, Little Orphan Annie was a common show for the young, it was loved by children, and soon they started buying merchandise of Annie, such as pins (Source 2). Some music people listened to was homemade, they also made portable dance floors. People also liked Jazz and swing music on the radio, as well as news and sports. Singing telegrams were popular (Source 4) Americans listened to the radio for an average of more than 4 hours a day, they were really attracted to comedy (Source 7).
You’ve now read about how families were destroyed, the food people had to eat, how the farmers stopped selling, and what people did to entertain themselves. Let’s just hope that America, or any other country, doesn’t have to go through the struggles of that life again.