Group items tagged

The gilderlehrman.org site focuses on American History and is "devoted to the improvement of history education". The site provides tools for both teachers and students to enhance the study of American History. This page contains an article by Susan Ware that talks about women and the Great Depression and the important role played by women in helping their families survive through this time and how little they had to work with in order to do so.

Another angle to this photo is women's roles during the Great Depression. This website examines exactly that. Men and women saw the Great Depression. For women, there became more pressure to take care of their families as food and money were very hard to come by.

This site gives more insight on women's contributions during the Depression. It focuses on the women's roles during that particular time. The women of the depression showed a lot of courage and they were determined to survive during these tough times. Husbands brought home reduced wages and the women did what ever it took at home to take care of the family. An example of this would be when women would buy old bread , eat less and warmed dishes to save on gas.

This pbs.org site focuses on the pbs television series "American Experience". This particular page deals with the Great Depression and goes into detail about the stock market crash which triggered the Depression. It is interesting to read how the "imbalance between the rich and poor" was a primary factor in the stock market crash and how the poor were by far the most affected by it. The piece also talks about how the government intially underestimated the crisis and it took the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to eventually bring about an end to the Depression.

The Modern American Poetry site offers poems and illustrations to students of the arts. This photo essay on The Great Depression provides a pictorial timeline of the major events of the Great Depression. There are several photographs by Walker Evans, the photographer behind the image we are discussing this week. Please note: The original source of these photos- The Library of Congess- was unavailable due to the government shutdown at the time I was trying to access the LOC site.

This webpage describes the conditions in America in the 1930s. It outlines the struggles of the working class as the depression hit. It illustrates the demarcation between classes, especially the working class and the business owners who fought to prevent unionized workers. The reader learns about the violence incited as a result the business owner's fight to limit unions. The webpage also goes on to discuss the plight of black workers in America. The site illustrates an intersection between race and class through examples such as the Scottsboro Boys' case.

This is great because it provides a summary of the Great Depression along with a timeline of events. The timeline highlights sufficient times during the 1930s, from the stock market crash, to the unemployment rates, ending with America's involvement in World War II. There is a tab that list the most influential people during the Great Depression such as President Roosevelt, which also summarize their active role during the Great Depression. There a section of photos which helps you get a glimpse into to what life was like during this time. Under the facts section, you are able to find statistics about the economy, unemployment and population during the 1930s

This site shows many interesting pictures during the Depression. One of my favorites is of a eighteen year old mother with her very young child. The mother is standing behind her baby while the kid is eating something from the ground. After viewing multiple sites on the Great Depression I learned that not everyone struggle during this time. The majority of people who lived during the Depression were poor however there a small percentage of people who were not affected at all. This divided America into two classes: the rich and the poor.

This is another article on the Great Depression. The reason why I included this article is because it included maps that I thought were very helpful. The article also mentioned some political implications of the Great Depression.

I also found this article to be interesting. Most, if not all people, were affected by the Great Depression. This is one of the many iconic photographs of a family during the Great Depression. Katherine McIntosh was very young when the picture was taken of her family. It just shows that the Great Depression was not only a problem for adults--it affected everyone.

This is a portrait of Allie Mae Burroughs husband, Floyd Burroughs, taken at the same time by Walker Evans.  This photograph uses the same basic layout with focused placed on the eyes and thin lipped straight-line mouth, made famous in the portrait of his wife, Allie Mae Burroughs.  

This site also reflects the roles of women during the Depression. However it focuses on the work detail for which women were responsible . When their husbands lost their jobs, women were forced into the labor market. The New Deal was a program created to aid economic recovery and it helped improve women's working conditions. The depression caused more women to have to get jobs than any other time in history. the New Deal also helped women overcome some racial prejudices against non- white women workers.

This CNN.money site combines information from CNN plus Fortune and Money magazines. This article by David Whitford of Fortune magazine goes into some detail about the story behind the photograph we are studying this week. The woman in the photo (taken when she was only 27 years old) is identified as Allie Mae Burroughs. Her son, Charles Burroughs recalls what life was like for him and his family during the Depression years.

This is an article of the return to Hale County, Alabama to speak with the descendants of Walker Evans' famous depression era portraits.  In this interview with Charles Burroughs, the son of Allie Mae Burroughs, he describes vividly the backdrop to the famous portrait.  The tough life of the depression era is evident in the portrait of 27 year old Allie Mae who looks like hard work has aged her and her eyes well beyond 27 years.

The son of Allie Burroughs swore he would never do what he's doing right now (an interview)," says Charles Burroughs. Tall and broad with a bald pate and those familiar gray eyes. Blue shirt, khaki pants, aviator glasses. Thick, flat fingers, grit under the nails. He has come reluctantly to meet me after work at a Waffle House in Tuscaloosa. Still angry after all these years at how a writer and a photographer on assignment for this magazine moved into his house when he was just a boy, 4 years old (he remembers the day), and stayed for weeks, and while the family was working in the fields, snooped around in dresser drawers and under beds, and took notes, and took pictures, and shared what they had taken with all the world. James Agee and Walker Evans gave us a lasting image of the Depression; Charles Burroughs and his family got squat. This site lets you in to the confusion and heart ache of the children of Allie-Mae Burroughs, the psychological aftermath the children has endured in their working situations. It also expresses how Charles Burroughs parents worked and just never had a chance, in a mostly African American area, making some 5.50 and dropping to 5.15 and hour if late to work once, or ever have to leave before the line shuts down for the day, to support a family. It also touches on the editors from Fortune who sent Agee and Evans south wanted them to write about poor whites. That they found their subjects in Hale County was more than a little perverse. Most of the county's people, and an even higher percentage of the poor people, were and are African American. This site also gives incite into the black society in this era i.e. - one Yolanda Robinson, who worked in quality control for a seafood company, is a sharecropper's granddaughter and is black. She won prizes for elocution in high school, joined the Navy, married young, and was widowed in her 20s. On her second stint at the catfish plant, had hoped she'd never have to

History.com's interpretation of the New deal. While it did little to end the great depression, it offered hope to society by offering projects and employment opportunities to society. The website includes a picture gallery of a struggling society in the 1930's and the projects that aimed to end it. The images are strong, including one that hits home; a photo of the Times Square Bread line. The North was the first to experience the effects of the great depression.

The Great depression forced many men out of work and out of money. Because of harsh times, men either left their families or sent the women to work, where many times, women were left feeling empowered. However, many men were left feeling worthless due to the dramatic changes, leading to further lack of work and income or worse, a broken home. With FDR's "new deal", aimed at providing employment to the poor, families had hope. However, African Americans were only pushed further into poverty as white males were the first to be hired for long term positions.

This site summarizes human impact the Great Depression had on Americans. Many people have lost they jobs. This resulting in the increase of crime, prostitution and alcoholism as people tried to find an escape from their daily problems. Men were not getting married as often and birth rates decrease as to avoid the expense of feeding and caring for an additional person. Films and radio became very popular as a form of entertainment during these times.

This article focuses lightly on the issues of immigrants during the Great Depression. This article came from the Digital History Web site. I neglected the idea of immigration during the Great Depression.

I found a great reference regarding the Great Depression and the impact on African Americans. I wanted to incorporate some of the ideas from the first unit. The information from the first unit will help us to better understand the information of the second unit. This reference also had a lot of great images. The Great Depression everyone.

This article is about race and the Great Depression. There were many strikes that African Americans organized during the 1930s. Many of these strikes were in opposition to the government. The article also mentioned some of the official organizations of workforces and unions in the United States of America during that time.

This page provides a little of the back story of Allie Mae Burroughs, who became the subject of a depression era iconic portrait by Walker Evans.  The image was taken as a series of four, all very similar in pose, expression and tone.  This page explained briefly on their lives as depression era sharecroppers with no real opportunity to advance from this life of hard work and poverty.  Interestingly enough, Allie Mae is compared to the Mona Lisa, in their absence of expression and hiding of thought.

On October 29, 1929 the stock market crashed. This day is also known as "Black Tuesday". This was the beginning of the Geat Depression Era in America. During the Great Depression, many Americans were unemployed. President Roosevelt introduced the "New Deal" which offered work relief for the American people. America's entry into War World 2 helped supply jobs for the American people. During this time of war, the demand for supplies for war was high. This provided a growth in the economy as more people began to work.

This site discusses the life of two hundred and fifty thousand teenage "hoboes" who left home because they felt they were a burden to their families. It describes how some teenagers looked for adventure while others searched for jobs. All were searching for a better life. Education was not an option for these children during the depression so they had to "ride the rails" to find employment.