What Does Great Depression Mean?
Posted by Knowledge Guy in Health and Well-Being, tags: Adequate Food, Beginning Of The Great Depression, Beginning Of World War Ii, Black Tuesday, deal with depression, Depression Statistics, Driven Economy, Dustbins, Food On The Table, Food Shelter, Great Depression, Herbert Hoover, Manic Depression, Popular Man, Shanty Towns, Shelter Clothing, Social Devastation, Soup Kitchen, Symptoms Of Depression, Waiting All Day, Wall Street Stock, Work Wages, World War IiThe Great Depression was a period of economic and social devastation that started in the US with the Wall Street stock exchange collapse on October 29th, 1929, the day that has come to be well-known as Black Tuesday.
The great depression facts, record that the poorest and most difficult times which were to follow, might last for lots of years, till the beginning of World War II, when a lot of countries began pouring huge sums of money in the new war driven economy, finally bringing unprecedented worldwide slump to an 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 depression statistics emerged, that 50% of all children did not have adequate food, shelter, clothing, or medical care.
For most persons, too poor to put food on the table, the only choice was the soup kitchen, where persons waiting all day for a bowl on meager, thin, watery soup. People were reduced to hunting among the dustbins for something to eat.
Industry ground to a halt, virtually. Because people didn’t have any money, they couldn’t afford to buy anything. With no income coming in from sales, businesses were forced to lay workers off, and eventually, to put themselves into liquidation.
It’s African-Americans that were always first to lose their livelihoods. For those who have had the chance to stay in work, wages have been dreadfully low. Depression pictures show that the standard wage of a farm worker was $ 216 per year, while 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.
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