America’s Great Depression & the Dust BowlIMPACT ON AMERICANS’ LIVES

The Great Depression The Roaring Twenties

◦ Economic boom ◦ Jazz Age ◦ A huge Gatsby Party !

Black Tuesday : Oct. 29,1929• Stock Market crashed • “An estimated $30 billion

in stock values will ‘disappear’ by mid-November ” (PBS)

• Banks and businesses were forced to close their doors

• Many Americans lost life savings • “More than 15 million Americans were

unemployed (about one quarter of the American workforce)” (PBS)

The Great Drought 1930 marked the start of a devastating drought to the Great Plains region ◦ Caused by over-plowing – what was

once rich soil turned to dust ◦ No water + fields of dust + high

winds = constant dust storms ◦ Storms and severe weather

conditions last about a decade ◦ The worst storm, known as Black

Sunday, occurred on April 14, 1935

Effects of the Dust Bowl

Unable to survive the economic plight and severe weather conditions, many families migrated to the West looking for work:

“In all, one-quarter of the population left, packing everything they owned into their cars and trucks, and headed west toward California. Although overall three out of four farmers stayed on their land, the mass exodus depleted the population drastically in certain areas. In the rural area outside Boise City, Oklahoma, the population dropped 40% with 1,642 small farmers and their families pulling up stakes” (PBS).

Effects on African-Americans The Great Depression

◦ Only worsened the economic disadvantages

◦ Cotton prices dropped dramatically within a few years of the stock market crash

• Most rural blacks migrated to the northern cities looking for work

• Became targets of more racial violence • Lynching increased 28 percent

(Library of Congress) • Denied unemployment (PBS) • Denied local access to social

assistance programs under the New Deal (PBS

Effects on Migrant Workers: Migrant Labor in California

CA’s moderate climate = fertile ground and long growing seasons to variety of cropsMexican and Asian, mostly Filipino, workers migrated to CA for work, especially in agriculture in the late 1800s-early 1900s. US Farm owners recruited them. Would work for less $ and under worse conditions than white Americans. 1920s - ¾ of CA farm workers were Mexican or Mexican-American. 1930 - ⅔ of Filipinos in USA lived in CAWork was difficult, but conditions were improving, until...

Life is hard.  Then it gets worse.  

Working and living conditions were steadily improving until Americans from the Plains states (Midwest and SW) migrated to CA in search of work.

This resulted in competition for scarce jobs.

Effects on Mexican Americans The migration began and with it came heated racism:◦ Newly segregated schools◦ A government-sponsored action plan was

put into place to deport over 400,000 Mexican nationals and Mexican Americans back to Mexico in order to give jobs to white men ◦ The increase of supply in work force drove

wages down, sparking white unions to protest working conditions and low wages

200,000 Dust Bowl victims fled to CA via Route 66 (no interstate system!) from Mid and Southwest.Migrant labor was concentrated in San Joaquin Valley where corporate, modernized farms ruled.Pay: 75 cents - $1.25 per DAY. 25 cents off the top for housing. Big ranches: Required to buy food from expensive company store.

Okies and Arkies

How bad was it? The sheer number of migrants camped out, desperate for work, led to scenes such as that described by John Steinbeck in his novel “The Grapes of Wrath”:

“Maybe he needs two hunderd men, so he talks to five hunderd, an’ they tell other folks, an’ when you get to the place, they’s a thousan’ men. This here fella says, “I’m payin’ twenty cents an hour.” An’ maybe half a the men walk off. But they’s still five hunderd that’s so goddamn hungry they’ll work for nothin’ but biscuits. Well, this here fella’s got a contract to pick them peaches or — chop that cotton. You see now? The more fella’s he can get, less he’s gonna pay. An’ he’ll get a fella with kids if he can.” (PBS)

Broke, desperate, and unwelcome

Demand for jobs outpaced supply – workers followed the harvests and lived a transient lifestyle. Racism, prejudice, and anger fueled conflicts between old workers and new.Many people gave up farmwork, living in shack-towns without plumbing or electricity.They were outsiders looked down on by “native” Californians. “Okies” was an insult used to describe any of the migrants from OK, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico.This prejudice continued for many years, even after the “Okies” were well-established in CA.

Women during the 1900s

Women’s Rights 1848 – Seneca Falls Convention organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton to begin fight for equal treatment of women (first women's rights convention)

◦ Began the long process of gaining rights for women in such areas as property rights, marriage rights, equal education, job opportunities, women's health rights

1878 – Woman Suffrage Amendment proposed to Congress (right to vote)

1920s – Nineteenth Amendment passes (full voting rights for women)◦ Women were breaking away from traditional ideas of a woman's role (image of the flapper

single, drinking, smoking, and staying out late broke the mold of women as just a homemaker)

◦ Despite winning full rights to vote, there was still much to do to gain women equal rights (wage issues, unfair labor laws, lack of access to college-level education, discrimination)

1930s-The Effects of the Great Depression went beyond economics for women

◦ With unemployment at an all-time high, women were pushed back in the home as to not take jobs from men in the workplace

◦ With the country in deep economic hardship, the issue of women's rights lost support and feminists did little to make gains in the struggle for sexual equality

◦ Women did not have much power and were defined by their marriage

◦ Brothels were still popular in California during this time and further supported the idea that women were lesser beings

Americans with Mental Disabilities

What is ID? ID stands for Intellectual Disability, or what many think of as Mental Disability.ID is a disability characterized by limitations in intellectual reasoning and adaptive behavior, which originates before age 18 and is often genetic in nature.

History Prior to the 1800’s, many people with ID were put into asylums and treated harshly.Throughout the 1800’s, many were optimistic that they could “normalize” people with ID.However, with the industrialization of the country, it became apparent that people with ID were much less able to adapt.

ID in the early 1900’sIt came to be believed that ID was inherited genetically, and therefore an effort arose to stop its reproductionResearchers made a great effort to identify all people with ID, even if they had minor casesOnce identified, reproduction among the ID population was stopped through segregation, sterilization, and loss of marriage rights

https://Legal Sterilization

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ID in the early 1900’s Many felt that medicine worked against natural selection, and that people with ID were reproducing at a greater rate than “normal” people, increasing costs of education, medicine, etc.

Some even felt the solution to the problem was euthanization of what they called “idiot children”

ID in the early 1900’s After the theory of inherited ID was disproved, a series of acts were passed in the 50’s-60’s, giving people with ID more rights. These reforms allowed those with ID rights of education and property, and largely helped deinstitutionalize that population. In addition, the reforms helped change the public’s opinion of this group, including a more compassionate treatment.