Mr. ErmerU.S. History

Miami Beach Senior High

THE DEPRESSION & AMERICAN SOCIETY

• 1930: More than half of African-Americans live in the South as farmers

• Decline in cotton prices leave many African-Americans without sufficient incomes

• African-Americans forced to leave rural areas for cities, whites occupy jobs formerly for blacks

• Black Shirts• 1932: More than half of southern African-Americans

unemployed• Even in northern cities, African-American unemployment at 50% or

more• The Scottsboro Case, illustrates survival of racism and

segregation in South• NAACP defends African-American rights, and argues for

membership in unions

AFRICAN AMERICANS & THE DEPRESSION

• Mexican-Americans experience similar discrimination as African-Americans

• Many had filled the same types of menial labor jobs in the West as blacks in the South

• Many rural families become migrant agricultural workers• Most Mex-Americans live in cities, fill the low skill industrial jobs, high

unemployment• Many relief programs exclude Mexicans from their rolls• Many Mexicans & Mexican-Americans leave for Mexico, or deported

(including citizens)• Latinos generally had no access to schools, many hospitals refused to

treat them

MEXICAN-AMERICANS & THE DEPRESSION

• Reinforces belief that women’s place was in the home, not workplace

• Women whose husbands were employed commonly refused work• Many women, however, were employed and worked through 1930s• By the end of the Depression 20% more women worked than before the crash

• Still, women more likely to be denied professional work and to be laid off

• Traditionally female service jobs less likely to decline as male dominated heavy industry

• Even unemployed men do not seek out “women’s work”

• African-American women suffer the most during the depression

WOMEN &THE DEPRESSION

• Retreat from consumerism• Women return to sewing clothes for families, selves• Home businesses like laundry service, baked goods, boarding on rise• Divorce rate declines because of high cost of court fees, informal

family breakups• Men leave home to find work in far off places, or to escape humiliation

of unemployment• Birth rates and marriage rates decline, some traditional family

values/roles resurge • Persistence of the “Success Ethic”• Some criticize the economic system in general, many

blame selves• Social unrest not as high as expected due to passivity of unemployed• Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)

THE DEPRESSION, FAMILIES, & AMERICAN VALUES

• Popular Front: coalition of “antifascist” groups, including Communist Party

• Paint the Great Depression as the failure of the capitalist system• Spanish Civil-War being fought between Franco’s fascists (supported by

Hitler & Mussolini) and the republican government, many Americans fight against Franco

• Under directions of the Soviet Union, American Communist Party joins with other groups

• Support for FDR and the New Deal, FDR seen as possible Soviet ally versus Hitler

• Southern Tenant Farmers Union• Being part of the Political Left becomes more acceptable,

even conventional

THE LEFT & THE POPULAR FRONT