Name:_________________________________________________

Date:__________________________
Effects of the Great Depression
Aim: What were the effects of the Great Depression on the American people?
Directions: Analyze the graph and answer the questions.

Questions:
1. What is the title of this graph?
2. What do the numbers on the left represent?
3. What do the numbers on the bottom represent?
4. What happened in 1929?
5. What is occurring in the graph and why do you think this is happening?

Directions: Read the descriptions of what the Great Depression was like for the
different groups of people. Fill in the section of the chart of the group that you are
assigned, and answer the questions.

People
Affected
African
Americans

Farm Workers

How were they affected?

Women

Children

African Americans in the Great Depression

In 1929, the Great Depression devastated
the United States. Hard times came to people
throughout the country, especially rural (worked
on farms) blacks. Cotton prices plunged from 18
to 6 cents a pound. Two thirds of some 2 million
black farmers earned nothing, or went into debt.
Hundreds of thousands of sharecroppers left the
land for the cities, leaving behind abandoned
fields and homes. Even, Negro jobsjobs
traditionally held by blacks, such as busboys,
elevator operators, garbage men, porters,
maids, and cookswere sought by desperate
unemployed whites. In Atlanta, Georgia, a Klan-like group called the Black Shirts
paraded around carrying signs that read, No jobs for blacks until every white man
has a job. In other cities, people shouted Blacks back to the cotton fields. City jobs
are for white men.
In Mississippi, where blacks traditionally held certain jobs on trains, several
unemployed white men, seeking train jobs, ambushed and killed the black workers.
The only group in the early years of the Depression that concerned itself with the
rights of rural blacks was the Communist Party. The party successfully fought to
save the lives of the Scottsboro Boys, 9 black youths falsely charged with rape in
Alabama. 8 were sentenced to death. The Communists also organized interracial
unions and demonstrations for relief (help), jobs, and end to evictions.

Questions:

1. Where did most African Americans that were hit hardest by the depression
live?

2. What jobs were traditionally held by African Americans?

3. Who were the Scottsboro Boys?

4. How would you describe life for African Americans during the depression?

Farm Workers in the Great Depression

Rural areas were hit hard by the depression. Farm income declined by 60%
between 1929 and 1932. A third of all American farmers lost their land. In addition,
a large area of agricultural settlement in the Great Plains was suffering from a
terrible natural disaster; one of the worst droughts in the history of the nation.
Beginning in 1930, the region, which became known as the Dust Bowl and which
stretched north from Texas into the Dakotas, experienced a steady decline in rainfall
as well as an increase in heat. The drought continued for a decade, turning what
had once been fertile farms into virtual deserts.
Many farmers, like many urban unemployed, left their homes in search of
work. In the South in particular, many homeless and jobless farmers- black and
white- simply wandered from town to town, hoping to find jobs or handouts. When
the dryness, heat, and grasshoppers destroyed the crops, farmers were left with no
money to buy groceries or make farm payments. Some people lost hope and moved
away. Many young men took government jobs building roads and bridges. By 1940,
normal rainfall returned, and federal programs helped to boost farm prices and
improve the soil. About the same time, a new government program started to hook
up farmhouses to electricity, making farm life easier and safer.
Still, hundreds of thousands of families from the Dust Bowl traveled to
California and other states, where they found conditions little better than those they
had left. Many worked as agricultural migrants, traveling from farm to farm picking
fruit and other crops for very low wages.

Questions:
1. What happened to farm income between the years of 1929 and 1932?

2. What was the region of the Great Plains suffering from?

3. What did farmers do in order to look for work, and what jobs did some take?

4. What were the conditions like for farmers after they arrived in new states?
Women in the Great Depression
The economic crisis served in many ways to strengthen the widespread belief
that a womens proper place was in the home. Most men and many women believed
that with employment so scarce what work there was should go to men. Indeed,
from 1932 until 1937 it was illegal for more than one member of a family to hold a
federal civil service job. But the widespread assumption that married women should
not work outside the home did not stop them from doing so. By the end of the
depression 25% more women were working, than had been doing so at the
beginning. This occurred despite considerable obstacles.
Professional opportunities for women declined because unemployed men
began moving into professions that had previously been considered womens fields.
Female industrial workers were more likely to be laid off or to experience wage
reductions than their male counterparts. But white women also held certain
advantages in the workplace. The non- professional jobs that women traditionally
held- sales clerk, stenographers (records court cases), and other service positions,
were less likely to disappear than the predominantly male jobs in heavy industry.
Black women suffered massive unemployment particularly in the south. As
many as half of all black working women lost their jobs in the 1930s. Even so at the
end of the 1930s 38% of black women were employed as compared with 24% of
white women. That was because black women both married and unmarried had

always been more likely to work than white women, less out of desire, than out of
economic necessity.

Questions:
1. How did most men feel about women working?
2. Why did professional opportunities for women decline?
3. Why do you think African American women were more likely to be employed
than white women?
4. What happened to women in the workforce at the end of the depression?
Children in the Great Depression
Life was hard for children of the Great Depression. People all over the country
were suffering from lack of adequate food and shelter. Families couldnt afford to
keep their cars on the road or pay their electric bills. Kids had to do without new
clothes, shoes, or toys and many could not attend school because they had to work.
Some left home to ease their parents burden, while others became homeless.
Food was not available easily so children had to adapt to living on powdered
milk, potatoes, and dried beans. The rate of starvation was so high that people
started eating weeds. People fought over garbage hoping to find some food to feed
on. Life was a daily struggle especially during the peak of unemployment season.
There were reports that people had to live on food scraps to feed their children.
At a very young age, children had a big responsibility for supporting their
families. They were hired for low wages in mines, farms, and factories. Most of them
had to leave school in order to earn money. People traded goods with one another in
order to save more money. Most of them lost heating in their homes as they could
not pay their rent or electricity bills. Therefore, some children had to live in extreme
cold, without milk, water, or gas. The Great Depression era also caused a lot of
children to have poor health due to malnutrition (bad diets, not enough food to eat).
The psychological and emotional impact was too high.

Questions:
1. What did children of the depression have to do without?
2. What did children survive on?
3. What types of jobs did children take?
4. What health condition was common in children of the depression?