Family Pressure In Great Depression

1.

Family pressure during the great depression was unlike any the U.S. has ever seen. Everything about families changed in the 1930s. Couples during the depression delayed marriage, and at the same time the divorce rates dropped because people could not afford to pay for two households. Birthrates also dropped and for the first time in American history below the replacement level. Income was closed to none in all families; regular income had dropped by 35% just in the years Hoover was in office. Families had a lot of stress; some pulled together and made do with what they had others pushed away. People turned to who ever they had, family, friends, and after all else the government. Although there were rich people in the depression as well that the depression did not effect at all who were oblivious to the people suffering around them. By Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration the unemployment rate was up to 25% only increasing till the 1940s. Within families the role played changed as well. Women and children were now working to put bread on the table. Fathers would despise sons for becoming the main source of income for a family. Unemployed men had a deep lack of self respect. That often led them to running away from there families forever. Because many men ran out or stopped caring the women's role was enhanced and became working women. Black women found it easier to find work a servants, clerks, textiles, workers, ect. Work made all women's status go up in their homes. Most minorities were affected very little by Franklins Roosevelt's New Deal. They were last hired, first fired in the depression most black males were completely rejected and either had no work or the worst jobs there were. During the years of the depression all families had hard times.

2.

By 1933 millions of Americans were out of work. Hundreds of thousand of men, women, and children roamed the country in search of food and shelter. Bead lines were not an uncommon sight. One of the earliest steps to aid the unemployed was the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps. This program designed to bring relief to the young men of America ages 18 to 25. In this program the CCC would enroll these men in camps across the country for around $30 a month. This was a semi-military style job almost two million men took place in the CCC. They took part in conservation projects such as planting trees to maintain national forest, eliminating steam pollution, creating fish, animal sanctuaries, and conserving coal, petroleum, shale, gas, sodium and helium deposits. Jobs also came from