Between 1929 and 1939, Americans struggled with the most severe economic crisis in modern history. Once the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties started to fade, giving way to the post-Crash depression, most people found themselves trapped in a vicious circle of debt, unemployment and financial insecurity, which altered their lives forever.
Family Life and the Role of Women during the Great Depression
The Great Depression decade is remembered as an age of crisis that affected Americans on every level. The severe economic hardship not only caused a dent in people’s savings and incomes, but also in their family life, their health and their psychological well being. As Paul Boyer and his co-authors illustrate in The Enduring Vision – A History of the American People, “as late as 1939, 9 million men and women remained jobless,” while “a quarter of all farm families had to accept public or private assistance during the 1930s”.
The economic depression had perhaps the most dramatic impact on the family. With unemployment on the rise during the Depression decade, many husbands lost their jobs and were no longer able to provide for their families. As joblessness became a widespread disease, many families started to lose their life-long savings and, eventually, their homes. In addition to the financial pressure it exerted on American families, economic adversity also eroded men’s self-esteem, further straining their relationships with their families.
Women had already started to work outside their homes before the economic crisis, but, as prospects of a steady income became grimmer, they began looking for jobs in increasing numbers. Single women, who were the sole providers of their families, carried the double burden of housework and a job that, in most cases, paid below the minimum wage that a man could earn. As their husbands became unemployed, married women started to compete for a share of the job market as well. Not only did they have to compete fiercely with jobless male workers, they also faced discrimination and the widespread resentment of those who believed they stole jobs from men, increasing the pressure on the economy.
Many wives and mothers substituted their labor for goods they could no longer purchase. Since few families afforded consumer goods, women also found creative ways to reuse the wardrobes and home goods they already possessed. They sewed clothes and relined old coats with blankets, they salvaged and recycled rags, broken dishes and pots. In their volume on American history, A People & A Nation, Mary Beth Norton and her co-authors remind that one of the maxims women strongly adhered to during the Depression era was “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” During this period of severe hardship, wives and mothers struggled to recycle goods and find cheap food for their families. They learned how to can food, bake bread, knit clothes, paint their own houses and grow vegetables in their gardens, reviving skills that had been forgotten during the careless 1920s.
The Depression decade saw a dramatic decline in birth and marriage rates, as well as an unprecedented surge in divorce rates. The American family was threatened from every angle. Nevertheless, despite the fact that they had to deal with financial pressure, labor discrimination and the crisis of husbands who felt their authority decline, many women managed to keep their families together and help them surmount the difficulties of the Depression decade with their hard work.
Workers Get Organized
While causing massive unemployment, the Depression era also triggered labor militancy and encouraged workers from the major U.S. industries to organize and fight for their rights. After 1935, when the National Labor Relations Act granted workers the right to bargain collectively, the unionization movement gained momentum. Steel and auto workers made some significant breakthroughs in the 1930s, obtaining wage increases and a forty-hour workweek.
The union movement did not accomplish much for female and minority workers, who were employed primarily in department stores, domestic services and agriculture, areas that were excluded from unionization. However, workers from most sectors of the U.S. industry benefited from the achievements of this labor movement. Paradoxically, decades later, high union wages and the inflexibility of union demands would become an investment deterrent, leading to labor outsourcing and to a new economic crisis in the U.S. Nevertheless, during the Great Depression, unions offered American workers a chance for survival.
Escapist Entertainment
During the Depression decade, Americans found refuge in the entertainment outlets that had become popular in the U.S. since the 1920s. Radio shows and musical programs continued to captivate audiences. In addition to news, political commentaries and music, the radio also featured fifteen-minute soap operas (named after the soap companies that originally sponsored them), melodramas that offered listeners a romanticized version of reality.
During the 1930s, the movies became one of America’s favorite pastimes. Most people could still afford to buy a movie ticket and Hollywood provided Americans with an avenue of escape from their grim reality. While films like Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) conveyed a patriotic message, reinforcing the idea that the people will prevail over any adversity, animation masterpieces like Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and emotionally satisfying stories like The Wizard of Oz (1939) transported children and parents into an enchanted world, oblivious to the effects of the Depression on their lives.
References:
Mary Beth Norton, David M. Katzman, David W. Blight, Howard P. Chudacoff, Thomas G. Paterson, William M. Tuttle, Jr. A People & A Nation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Jr., Sandra McNair Hawley, Joseph F. Kett, Neal Salisbury, Harvard Sitkoff, Nancy Woloch. The Enduring Vision -- A History of the American People, Vol. II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Iulia Filip - Born and raised in Romania, Iulia Filip currently resides in South Carolina, USA. She has graduated from the MFA Program in Creative ...
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