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The Great Depression: A Shift to a New Idea.

Theres a lot that attributed to the collapse of the economy and rise of the Great
Depression. Most of it is still up for debate. Amid the many lurking theories and ideas, some
things are for certain. For one thing, in the roaring twenties, there was a maldistribution of
wealth. Since Productivity was increasing at a far faster rate than wages. the majority of the
countrys wealth was eddying in the top .5 percent of the population. (Mcelvaine,1993, pp.38).
This meant that Nearly 80% of the nations families- some 21.5 million households- had no
savings whatsoever ( Mcelvaine,1993,pp.38). Without savings, there is no buffer. Another
contributing factor is the rise of credit. The rise of mass production allowed for citizens to for the
first time, purchase in monthly and weekly installments.
By the last years of the decade, three of every five cars and 80 percent of
all radios sold were purchased with installment credit. Between 1925 and 1929
the amount of installment credit outstanding in the United States more than
doubled, from 1.38$ billion to 3$ billion (Mcelvaine,1993, pp.40).
Once American values adjusted to this new ability, with the help of advertisements,
Americans were buying things they couldnt afford.
As previously mentioned, there was a shift in American values towards a sense of a self-
centered need to get rich quickly. The best example of this can be seen with the Florida property
boom. Investors began buying property in Florida with no intention of every setting foot on the
property. The intention was to sell it to someone else for a profit. However, since everyone had
this idea, no one was looking to buy. For investors, this Florida Bubble (Mcelvaine,1993,
pp.42) was a ticking time bomb, doomed to collapse.
Now it is important to note, that not all of American citizens were involved with the stock
market. Roughly 4 million Americans owned stock in 1929, out of a population of
approximately 120 million. Only 1.5 million of those stock-holders had a sufficiently large
interest to have an account with a broker (Mcelvaine, 1993, pp.44). Going back to the eddying
of wealth, there was a huge concentration of wealth eddying up in the stock market. Indeed
some observers charged that the New York stock exchange was sucking up all the money in the
world (Mcelvaine, 1993, pp.45). This was the calm before the storm. The actual crash came
when a series of falling stocks began to waiver the peoples faith in the market, a wavering that
continued until panic sent everyone selling with no buyers. Black Tuesday struck on October
29th, 1929. But this was only the beginning. As J.k. Galbraith has pointed out, nothing was lost
in the Crash but money (Mcelvaine,1993, pp.48). Americans would soon find out that there
was more to life than money as exports and imports swiftly fell after the market crash and the
storm came rolling in.
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A stock market crash alone is not sufficient to cause a worldwide depression. This is just
the cold which took away the antibodies for other sickness to storm in. Mcelvaine points out that
the real cornerstone is the maldistribution of income. It lead to both under consumption, and
over saving, and it helped fuel speculation (Mcelvaine,1993, pp.50). This was the real paradox
of the depression, being so poor, yet surrounded by such plenty as the industrial age could
produce. The passage Mcelvaine uses from Current History captures this idea: we are not able
to purchase the abundance that modern methods of agriculture, mining and manufacture make
available in such bountiful quantities. Why is mankind being asked to go hungry and cold and
poverty stricken in the midst of plenty?(Mcelvaine,1993, pp.50).
As the nations downfall came from a shift in thought to adapt to the industrial
revolution, the nation had to shift to this new life without wealth. But before I discuss the shift in
thought, let me discuss what the country faced in the great depression. The book, Children of the
Great Depression by Russell Freeman (2005), provides an excellent lens for us to picture of the
nation in the Great Depression.
During the great Depression of the 1930s, millions of families were struggling to
live on incomes so meager that the threat of disaster hung over them day after day. More
than half the nations families did not have enough money to provide adequate food,
shelter, clothing or medical care. Some people were so poor they went hungry. Children
fainted in school because they had not eaten at home (Freeman,2005, pp.4).
This crisis, brought on by the frivolous spending of the roaring twenties, made half the nation
struggling just to put food on their plates. Schools are a great indicator of the state of the nation.
Millions of students, some as young as seven, dropped out to support themselves. Children as
young as five or six would be forced to find work to help provide for their family, though often it
was the teenagers (Freeman,2005, pp.42). Some boys made money by holding a tree-sitting
contest. Local merchants would pay boys to climb the tallest tree and see who could sit up there
the longest. Teen couples could participate in a dance marathon, another 1930s craze. People
would pay to watch these dancers dance till they fell down from exhaustion. The last dancers
dancing earned prize money (Freeman,2005, pp.47).
Peoples incomes could not supply tax revenues to support public education and, in an
effort to save money, some schools were forced to shorten the year to six months, some to three
days a week and some schools were forced to close altogether (Freeman, 2005, pp.29). A
disheartened fourteen year-old farm girl wrote to her cousin: with the school closed (I feel like
crying every time I see it with the doors and windows boarded up) Ill be too old before I go to
high school(Freeman,2005, pp.30). Within the span of a year, Americas educational system
had been rapidly leaving it incapable of fully educating Americas population. Only about 10
percent of Americas college-aged population was able to go on to college during the great
depression (Freeman, 2005, pp.39).
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Even more telling than the nations education are the hungry faces the underpaid teachers
faced (some teachers were teaching for free).
In the impoverished Mining towns of the Appalachians, entire families were
living on dandelions, pokeweed, and blackberries. It was reported that some children
grew so hungry, they chewed on their own hands till they drew blood. One child who
looked ill when she arrived at school was told by her teacher to go home and get
something to eat. I cant she replied. Its my sisters turn to eat (Freeman, 2005,
pp.35).
These stories are just echoes of the thousands of stories, including fighting over trash, and the
long lines for bread, that capture a nation that could not feed, clothe, house or provide medical
care for itself.
Another story is the story of the box-car children. In the days before commercial air
travel, trains were the predominant source of travel for people and goods. So, for a multitude of
reasons, a restless legion of tramps and hoboes took to bumming off train rides, roaming
America (Freeman, 2005, pp.72). By the late 1932 (three years after the crash), at least 250,000
of these Depression-era nomads were youths under the age of twenty-one (Freeman, 2005,
pp.72). It had become a whole culture of train-hopping. They would hike along country sides,
swap stories, and exchange tips about where the best foods and shelters were. It was dangerous
work too. You had to be careful not to stumble or fall under the wheels when you climbed on
the cars (Freeman, 2005, pp.75). Many riders lost their legs, or their lives. Then you had to
worry about running into the bulls or railroad detectives and the local police (Freeman, 2005,
pp.76). Still, despite the dangers, many of these box-car children flourished. Years later, many
of them looked back at their days on the road as the great adventure of their lives, a time when
they were footloose, fearless, and free (Freeman, 2005, pp.81).
Then the dust-bowl hit. From North Dakota to Texas poor farming practices and
overgrazing by sheep and cattle had exhausted much of the regions topsoil (Freeman, 2005,
pp.59). The result was a magnified devastating, destructive drought. Terrifying wind-driven
dust storms called black blizzards boiled up from the parched land and rolled across entire
states darkening the sky (Freeman, 2005, pp.59). The regions that were hit hardest- Kansas,
Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico became known as the dustbowl
(Freeman, 2005, pp.60). Many families stuck it out, but many with nothing left, were forced to
abandoned farms and ranches that had been theirs for generations. Many fled to California
where, no matter where they were from, they would be lumped together and assumed to have
come from Oklahoma, earning them the derogatory nickname Okies. Okies would swiftly
become victims of hostility and contempt. They would find jobs in the commercialized farms of
California, but the migrant workers would also find themselves living ditch-camps, constantly
traveling camps that often camp along the side of the road in ditches (Freeman, 2005, pp.63).
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Over time the Okies would overcome the extreme prejudices directed towards them, and slowly
set up more permanent settlements and eventually, in reaction to the war in 1940, they would
integrate themselves into the surrounding towns and cities. The term Okies would shift to a
badge of respect and strength (Freeman, 2005, pp.69).
Now that I have laid out the picture of the Great Depression, let me illustrate their shift in
thinking. Suddenly the nation that once took pride in providing for itself, a nation that in the 20s
shifted to realizing it could buy anything off credit, now became a nation whose identity was
enslaved by poverty. They had to shift from thinking they could buy any toy they wanted to
enjoying the cheapest of entertainments. This is the rise of the box-tops in cereals and radios.
Wooden clothespins became dolls and action figures. Tin cans and string became walkie-talkies.
(Freeman, 2005, pp.91).
Then there were the movies:
For one thin dime, a kid could see a double-feature (two full-length movies), an
animated cartoon, a short newsreel dealing with current events, a humorous short
subject, and the latest episode of a serial-a continuing adventure story told one
chapter a week (Freeman, 2005, pp.83).
These simple forms of entertainment would be crucial to freeing people from their economic
oppression.
Phillip Hanson points out in his book This Side of Despair, the movies echoed and
discussed the populations threatened identity. No decade ever made clearer the relationship
between identity and economics (Hanson, 2008, pp.17). Hanson then points to the movie If I
had a million where a prostitute, Viola, receives a million dollars. Overnight, her economic
status changes her personal identity from a prostitute to a member of higher society. This echoes
the teenagers who over night went from living alone with their parents to selling themselves on
the streets. It also echoes the men and women who married merely for the financial benefits.
Engineers and farmers became bums. All across America, her citizens identities were changing
at the whims of her fallen economy. Hanson then points to a letter by one woman among the
thousands of people who wrote to appeal to Eleanor Roosevelts sympathies and help.
We are American born citizens and have always been self supporting. It is very
humiliating for me to have to write to you. Asking you again to pardon the
privilege I am taking. I am hoping I may hear from you without publicity by ret.
Post (Hanson, 2008, pp.17).
This woman is humbly asking for aid, like so many of Americans, from Eleanor
Roosevelt. Some asked for clothes, some asked for money for school. But like this woman, the
very act of asking was humiliating and went against everything Americans believed in. This is
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the story of the nation, a nation who can no longer support themselves, their identities at the
whims of the economy. No longer are they free. No longer can they rely on themselves.
Morris Dickstein (2009) in his book, Dancing in the Dark, describes the paradox that
Americans faced. Imprisoned by the harshness of the times, they were a people perpetually
seeking mobility, hopping trains searching for cities that didnt want them, sitting in camps, with
nothing else to do, dancing till their feet dropped: This is the ultimate irony, that in a world
where so many took to the roads, so few had any real mobility.(Dickstein, 2009, pp.359). It was
a sense of stasis in the midst of motion southerner William Faulkner would capture throughout
his work, especially in his book, The Sound and The Fury ( P.Balbert, personal communications,
2011). The movies then involved characters with lots of vivacity and movement, to take the
audience out of this world. In Bringing up Baby, Audrey Hepburn and Carey Grant play a zany
scene singing to a leopard. This freedom and frivolity, Dickstein says, combats the harsh realities
of the people, giving them a sense, a hope, of the future (Dickstein, 2009 pp.361)
Many creative spirits of the Depression years reacted to the sense of stasis, the
feeling of being bogged down in the intractable, with a burst of energy, lightness,
and motionThis suggests that not money and success, not even elegance and
sophistication were the real dream of the expressive culture of the 1930s, but this
dream of mobility, with its thrust towards the future (Dickstein, 2009, pp.361).
With his creation of a new line of thinking, Roosevelt would provide the people with a
sense of mobility, vivacity and hope. How to reconcile a world that believes in freedom when
they are oppressed by the very system they set up? In Roosevelts eyes free the people through a
big government that gives freedom to those that dont have it. In his Inaugural address he spoke
of the importance of maintaining our values as Americans, striving not for personal gains, but
aiding our community. That we cannot merely take, but we must give as well; that if we are to
move forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a
common discipline (Roosevelt, 1933, pp.7). In Roosevelts eyes, our autonomy comes not from
seeking material gains and wealth, but in helping ourselves and each other for the improvement
of society. If we move as one towards a common discipline we will conquer the problems that
we face. By using the government, which is founded by the people, to redistribute more jobs, to
put a check and balance system over our bankers and do what is necessary to provide for the
people, we will create a stronger country. (Roosevelt,1933, pp.4-6). Those suffering from
hardship from no right of their own have a right to call upon the Government for aid. Roosevelt
told Congress in 1938 (Freeman, 2005, pp.100).
Roosevelt accomplished this through the New Deal. Often historians agree with Isaiah
Berlin who said in 1955 that the New Deal was an impressive balancing act, able to reconcile
individual liberty with the indispensible minimum of organizing and authority (Rauchway,
2008, pp.1). The New Deal which would grow to include social insurance for old age,
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unemployment, disability, support for unionization and a strengthened reserve system, was filled
with a variety of programs to support the forgotten man or aid Those suffering from hardship
from no right of their own.(Rauchway, 2008, pp.1, Freeman, 2005, pp.100). Roosevelt would
fight even the supreme court to pass this bill and execute it, on one hand solving the crisis of the
1930s, on the other, this lead some to believe that Roosevelt was himself committing the crime
of dictatorship.
Arguably, the New Deal did not bring America out of the depression. Some could say it
was the War that brought us out. Others may even say that it wasnt the war, but the economic
nature to bounce back. Some may even go so far as to say that the New Deal stalled the
economic recovery.
In his book FDRs Folly Jim Powell (2003) suggests that there is evidence of this stalling
of the economic recovery. While little is known about the effects of the New Deal on the
economy, Powell points to the slight dip after the peak of 1937 hinting that the New Deal might
have caused this dip. Indeed the fact of another depression hitting right after another is highly
unusual (Powell, 2003, pp.vii). Then he spends the rest of the book discussing troubling issues
that have arisen from the New Deal.
Why did New Dealers make it more expensive for employers to hire
people?...Why so many policies to push up the cost of living. Why did New
Dealers destroy food while people went hungry?...Why didnt the New Deal
public works projects bring about a recovery? Why was so much New Deal relief
spending channeled away from the poorest people? (Powell,2003, pp.viii).

But the biggest issue that arose from the New Deal is the absurd increase in taxes. Indeed
Roosevelt tripled the taxes.
All these taxes meant there was less capitol for businesses to create jobs,
and people had less money in their pockets. In addition FDR increased the cost of
employing people, and so there shouldnt be any surprise that the unemployment
rate remained stubbornly high (Powell, 2003, pp.x).
These are just some of the many arguments that Powell and many other historians and
economists have posed against the New Deal. Indeed it seems that most of the controversy
surrounding the presidency of Mr. Roosevelt surrounds this question over the success of the New
Deal.
Regardless, one thing can be attributed to Mr. Roosevelts name. He solved the
automaticity versus dependency crisis and helped to twist the ideology of the founding fathers to
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care for the forgotten man who are suffering from hardship from no right of their own.
(Freeman, 2005, pp.100). Whether they believed in Mr. Roosevelts philosophy or not, it is under
this new idea that the children of an incredible generation grew up in.
The United States entered World War 1 and the young people who were children during
the Great Depression were called on to face another national crisis. They fought in
Europe and the Pacific, and when they came home, eager to get on with their lives and
optimistic about the future, they helped build the strongest economy the United States has
ever knownThey prospered as no Americans before them ever had. But they never
forgot what it meant to be young and needy during Americas Great Depression.
(Freeman, 2005, p.101).

References:
Dr. Balbert, Peter. (2011) Personal communicatins, interview, Trinity University.
Dickstein, Morris (2009) Dancing in the Dark: A cultural history of the Great depression. New
York, New York: W. W. Norton and Company,
Freeman, Russell (2005) Children of the Great Depression. New York: Clarion Books.
Hanson, Phillip (2008) The Other Side of Despair: How the Movies and American Life Intersect
During the Great Depression. Madison: Teaneck Farleigh Dickenson University Press.
Mcelvaine, Robert S. (1993). The Great Depression: America 1929-1941. New York: Three
Rivers Press.
Powell, Jim (2003) FDRs Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great
Depression. New York, New York: Crown Forum.
Rauchway, Eric (2008) The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction.
New York: Oxford University Press.
FDRs Inaugral Address (1933-1945). Retrieved from
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/fdr-inaugural/