Pull Yourself up by Your Own Bootstraps:

a Century of American Poverty

Veselina Tomova
 Poverty has been an endemic issue in all societies
since the dawn of civilization, despite our best efforts
to curb it. But poverty in America disproportionately
affects already disenfranchised minorities like African
Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans,
Latinxs, immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, disabled
people, and women.

We will take a glimpse of some of the most poignant images of poverty

in the United States, starting from the 1920s and finishing in the 1950s.
The Roaring
Twenties
1920 – 1929
Although this period is largely remembered as a
time of unparalleled prosperity and modernization,
more than 60% of Americans lived under the
poverty line. African Americans, white framers, • Subtitle
and immigrants were the ones excluded from the
emergent consumer economy. Large surpluses
caused one in four farms to be sold to meet
financial obligations. The time period was also
marked by a surge in nativism, contributing to an
atmosphere hostile to immigrants, which
significantly restricted their job opportunities.
New York City slums c. 1920
Right to left: African American sharecroppers, white farmers, black rural poor, NYC immigrants, and interior of a sharecropper’s home.
The Great
Depression
1930 – 1939
The Great Depression was the worst economic
downturn in the history of the industrialized world.
At its worst in 1933, unemployment reached 25%
of the American population, who also suffered
from debt and homelessness. Bread lines • Subtitle
stretching for blocks and hastily assembled shanty
towns were a common sight. Minorities, who
struggled even in the booming economy, were hit
the hardest— around 50% of African Americans
were unemployed. Rural life also worsened with
the Dust Bowl. FDR’s New Deal alleviated some
of these issues, but it was WWII that ultimately Florence Thompson and several of her children, photographed
put an end to the depression. by Dorothea Lange in 1936. The photo, known as “Migrant
Mother”, became a symbol of the Great Depression.
Right to left: women protesting for jobs, escalating racism, “White Angel Breadline”, Hoovervilles, and the aftermath of the Dust Bowl.
Right to left: breadlines were a hallmark of the depression, children holding up signs in protest
World War II
1940 – 1946
America’s involvement in World War II following
the Japanese bombing at Pearl Harbor in 1941
boosted the economy immensely. More than 6
million women took defense jobs. The percentage
of black women working as domestic servants
dropped by 20%, but African Americans made up
only 7% of the war industries. After the war, the
mean family income had increased an astonishing
25%. But at the expense of this prosperity, Ads like these
Japanese Americans were given a few weeks to encouraged
sell their belongings, get their affairs in order, and women to fill
report to an internment camp. And a lot of cities, the jobs left
including Detroit, suffered from poverty and racial behind in the
tensions as state spending decreased for health and country—but
education. only until the
men returned.
From right to left: the Japanese
interment camps; the Detriot
neighborhood, “Black Bottom”,
which suffered extreme urban
poverty; not everyone shared
equally in the prosperity of the
times; women working in the
munition's factories
 These men crammed into a slum in New
York City illustrated the unequal
distribution of wealth during the 1950s.

The Postwar Era

1946 – 1952
The innovations in technology and the economic
boom of the postwar era fueled the creation of a
burgeoning white middle class. The public had
accumulated $140 billion dollars in savings, and
the average weekly wage had almost doubled. But
not all Americans were part of the affluent society.
African Americans, Hispanics, and Native
Americans were the last hired and the first fired.
For many of the country's minorities and rural
poor, the American dream remained well out of
reach.
 Title 12
Children sit and play in a littered area of Chicago’s slums. Extreme poverty was common in Appalachia.
Thank You for the
Attention!