To most Americans, the thirties were a bad dream, a deep-seated ache that never went away. No matter how hard they looked for work, no matter how much they tried to keep their spirits up, the Great Depression was always there. It was a shadow that clouded the whole decade.
The twenties had been an upbeat time. The economy grew rapidly, and most Americans, eager to forget the horrors of World War I, were in a playful mood. But after the stock market crash of 1929, American optimism began to fade rapidly. At first, the crash hurt only a handful of large investors, but in just a few months, the ensuing panic led to widespread economic collapse. Banks across the country began failing, farm prices dropped, and hundreds of thousands of wage earners found themselves out of work or with their hours cut back.
Soon soup kitchens and bread lines were jammed with families whose breadwinners were out of work. Businessmen could be seen on nearly every street corner, hawking pencils, apples, shoelaces — whatever they could to make a buck. For many Americans, poverty was no longer an abstract concept, if in fact it ever had been. "The poor," as one woman commented, "are exactly like us."
People’s dreams of a better life faded quickly as they lost their savings, their cars, and their homes. The greatest economy in history was falling apart, but many Americans refused to recognize the signs. Some blamed themselves, feeling a sense of personal responsibility for their failures. Others felt helpless. Nothing they could do seemed to make a difference. Their miserable lot was their destiny, their fate. Most of all, people felt desperate. There were no signs that the economy would soon turn around.
President Herbert Hoover responded with programs to stimulate manufacturing and initiate public works, but he did not authorize direct federal relief to the unemployed. With hindsight, it appears that his response was not quick or decisive enough. The economy continued to decline further.
By 1933, 25 percent of the labor force, almost thirteen million workers, was unemployed. Especially hard hit were the people who started out the Depression in poverty, the African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, American Indians, and the elderly. A series of natural disasters in the Midwest, which included droughts, dust storms, and floods, left hundreds of thousands homeless. Many began migrating westward in search of a better life, but most found only more poverty and squalor.
Federal, state, and local relief programs could not begin to help all those who needed it. Protests, such as the bonus army march on Washington, D.C., in 1932 and the Farm Holiday Association pickets, also in 1932, were a dramatic display of Americans’ most deep-seated fears and resentments.
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, he took bold steps to combat the effects of the Depression. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," he declared in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933. His administration initiated an aggressive recovery program called the New Deal, which greatly enlarged the federal government’s role in stabilizing business and guaranteeing family welfare. New Deal programs addressed a variety of social and economic problems, from unemployment compensation to theater jobs for unemployed actors.
Some people called Roosevelt the savior of democracy. Others called him the devil, a traitor to his upper-class upbringing. Despite the critics, Roosevelt’s popularity with the American people was strong enough to get him elected four times, and the New Deal programs did help to alleviate some of the Depression’s worst effects.
Loss of Confidence
But as the economic slump wore on, some Americans began to lose confidence in capitalism. They wondered whether their elected officials were on the right track. Many people began to support populists whose programs seemed to promise solutions to their economic woes. Three of the most well known were Francis E. Townsend, U.S. Senator Huey P. Long, and Father Charles E. Coughlin, all of whom put forth legislative proposals to cure America’s ills. Although none of their recommendations was enacted as proposed, many of their ideas found their way into New Deal legislation. Another prominent movement, that of organized labor, gained considerable strength, as hundreds of thousands of workers in the new industrial factories became unionized.
Despite the country’s economic woes, most Americans were still able to have a little fun. Parlor games were popular, motion pictures were well attended, and amateur and professional sports had a wide following. Public works programs created a vast network of national, state, and local parks for average Americans to enjoy. Meanwhile, as many people continued to read for information and pleasure, millions of Americans became addicted to the exciting new medium of radio, enjoying both up-to-the-minute news and a wide variety of entertainment.
