✖Great Depression

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This is the photo taken by Dorothea Lange during the Great Depression in 1932. I have found it in my bookshelf which is contained with my old books and old albums, I picked up and took a look at it. It has made me think of the story that my grandparents told me about their lives in that time.

The woman in a photo was my grandfather's mother. Yes, she would be my great grandmother.
The boy on the right was my grandfather and another boy on the left was his brother.

My grandfather told me how hopeless it was in that time. Everything seemed to be bad.
It was a period of protests and hunger marches and unionism spread out, but many people suffered quietly, ashamed of their poverty.

Before the Great Depression began, economy was going so well. There were ways to get rich quickly, such as the speculation and buying on margin. The stock market had been crowded by investors. People thought they would never be falling down again. But things did not end up with what they thought.
In October 1929, the Great Depression began, when the stock market in the United States dropped rapidly. A lot of investors lost money and were wiped out, lost everything. The 'crash' sparked the flame of the Great Depression. The ranked of high unemployment and low business activity were the longest and worst. Banks, stores, and factories were closed and left millions of Americans jobless and homeless. Many people came to depend on the government or charity to provide them with food.

My great grandparents were farmers. Their farmland was attacked by the great dust storms for seven years. They could not plant anything. They had no money, no food, and no hope.
They suffered under the dust storms. My great grandfather went into the cities, tried to find a job. But It was not that easy to find a job during that time. The men could not get jobs, and especially the black men. Even the people who graduated with a degree in chemistry or whatever, they could not get a job. So, there was no way for my grandparents and their siblings to go to school anymore.

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My grandfather told me he was unhappy. Even if he was still so young. There was no any fun things for kids at all.

President Herbert Hoover was president when the Great Depression began. The economy continued to drop almost every month. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President in 1932. Roosevelt created so many new deals for American people, it gave the government more power and helped the U.S. get out of the depression.

Yes, my great grandparents and my grandparents were helped by the President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The Agricultural Adjustment Act was enacted in 1933, protected farmers from price drops by providing crop subsidies to reduce production. And my great grandfather got to learn about the methods of preventing soil erosion. When the National Youth Administration was enacted, my grandfather's big brothers got a part time job, so they were able to help family and we started to go to school again. There are still many new deals which I have not mentioned, such as the Civil Works Administration, Social Security Act, Public Works Administration, and Works Progress Administration.

By 1939, the New Deal had run. New Deal programs improved the lives of people suffering from the depression. But not everyone agreed with President Roosevelt and his new deal. Some people thought that the government should not spend millions on public work, going into dept.

Some people argued that the New Deal would not go far enough. But it helped my family to get out from a hard time through that time of the Great Depression.