How the Great Depression influenced me
The most influential topic that was studied to me was the Great Depression. It was influential because my grandparents lived through it and so it is a little close to home for me after hearing stories about it from people who personally lived through it. It was a time in the country where money meant almost nothing because people didn’t have any and resources were very scarce. Families went without and people suffered greatly trying to make ends meet. It also made me think about the president and how he can calm the public but not know how extensively the problem runs. After the crash that led to a downward spiral, the Hoover administration said that the economy was okay because the markets usually go up and down. Since this was the down, he was expecting an up that didn’t come as soon as it should have. Unemployment tripled which left people even more scared about how they were going to live. Then of course the dust bowl had to occur to reduce the crops to nil and made farmers lose their farms because they couldn’t grow anything which scared more people because of the loss of food now being a problem. So many things went wrong during the Great Depression and it is astounding to me on how well some people made out and how poorly others did. This affected me the most because it is a tragedy to see so many people suffer from loss of land, money, and food.
My mom told me a story about my grandparents when it came to the Great Depression and that was when their money disappeared from their bank account and they had very little money left and yet my grandfather still bought my grandmother a jacket she had been eyeing. I thought that was amazing that regardless of how grim their situation looked, they still made each other a priority. It was also interesting to learn about how some people weren’t affected nearly as much as others when the depression hit because they weren’t affluenced so much from the previous decade that they were able to adapt to the changes more easily by growing their own food, fixing clothes, and canning or preserving their food. They wasted little and were able to manage better than other families who were more adjusted to the way the world had changed. It made it interesting to learn how some people just took the Great Depression in stride and made it work for them and others were so reliant on what had become that they no longer knew what to do when times were tough.
How easily people lost their jobs was just amazing to me, especially when it was from big companies like Henry Ford. Those big companies are the ones who you wouldn’t think need to make cut backs but they had to because they didn’t have the means to continue employing people. Other companies tore down their employee housing because they couldn’t pay the property tax on the building. It even shocked me to see how men even retaliated when women went to work because they felt that those jobs belonged to unemployed men. To see how the hatred to people just trying to make ends meet even if it was against the norm was side. You think that we would want to see each other succeed and help each other during the hard times. Not critisize those who were willing to do whatever it takes to make it work. It even made me sad to see how little the president wanted to do to help, thinking that relief should come from individuals instead of the federal government. Hoover passed two bills to assist but they did not directly help the public but instead helped companies that were trying to assist the public. It took the president Roosevelt to come into office and put into place things to help the public and long term fixes to the problems at hand.
Having a better understanding of US history influences my future by showing me what not to do when in a crisis. During this time, it behooved people to pull up their boot strings and work harder and figure out a way to make things work. That’s the biggest thing I can take away from this time period because that’s what you should do when things get tough. Make things work and just keep on going. I have learned through this class that you don’t need to treat your fellow americans poorly for your own benefit. I have seen brothers fight brothers in the Civil War and countries wage war at each other because they didn’t want to be pushed around. So many of these things that I read about just blew me away because of all the cruelty that occurred. Every person wanted to be right and to do whatever they wanted to do. From the President having an affair in office and it going public to the person who had big dreams and then started building cars that changed the way people viewed them. I have learned that if you can dream it and put your mind to it then you can do it and no one should stand in your way. Push the boundaries but don’t run people over in the process. When times get tough, help each other. Studying history gives you a greater understanding of why things are the way they are right now.