Great depression facts - hell on earth

The great depression was a time of economic and social devastation that began in the United States with the Wall Street stock exchange collapse on the 29th October 1929, a day which came to be known as Black Tuesday.

The great depression facts, record that these poorest and hardest of times which were to follow, would last for many years, until the beginning of the Second World War, at which time many nations began pouring huge sums of money into the new war driven economy, eventually bringing the unprecedented worldwide slump to a end.

What mustn’t be forgotten of course, is that in those days, there was no social support. If you were penniless and hungry, there was nowhere or no-one to turn to. It was under such circumstances as these that one of the most shocking great depression facts emerged, that 50% of all children did not have adequate food, shelter, clothing, or medical care.

For most people, too poor to put food on the table, the only recourse was the soup kitchen, where people queued all day long for a bowl on meager, thin, watery soup. That was for the lucky ones! There were some areas that were not even served by soup kitchens. People were reduced to scavenging amongst the rubbish bins for something, anything to eat.

Industry ground to a halt, virtually. Because people didn’t have any money, they couldn’t afford to buy anything. So with no-one to buy their products, businesses had no option other than to stop manufacturing. With no income coming in from sales, businesses were forced to lay workers off, and eventually, to put themselves into liquidation.

It was the African Americans who were always first to lose their livelihood. For those people who were lucky enough to stay in work, the wages were abominably low. More great depression facts reveal that the average wage for a farm worker was $216 per year, whilst a doctor earned $3822.29

The president at the beginning of the great depression was Herbert Hoover and as it can now be imagined, he was not a popular man, being considered by many for doing too little and not managing to avert the crisis.

Hoover’s name was taken and used to nickname several consequences of the time like the settlements or shanty towns that sprang up everywhere being called “Hoovervilles”; or the soup “cocktail” that starving people would make when they went into a restaurant, diverted the waitresses attention, made a soup from whatever was left on the table tops (water, tomato sauce, salt, pepper) and drink it while her attention was still diverted, a concoction that came to be known as “Hoover Soup”. A pitiful but true great depression fact.

If things weren’t bad enough, great depression facts tell that the “Dust Bowl” also developed during this time. It is the nickname given to savage drought conditions that prevailed in the southern plains of the US. Dust got literally everywhere. Into food and drink, inside houses, into people’s eyes, ears, and lungs, into every single nook and cranny.

It was in 1939 that Franklin D Roosevelt became president of the US. He inherited an economy and a social structure in ruins. The only good thing that could be said for it was that the only way was up. The only positive great depression fact, is that out of the mess of this ruination of society was born some basic elements of a social aid system that are still in force today; things like social security, the national recovery administration, and the securities and exchange commission.

It is to be hoped that we will never see the likes of great depression ever again.

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Great Depression Facts

interesting facts about the great depression

Great depression facts - hell on earth

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