Common Life During The American Great Depression

The Great Depression was that period in the History of the United States of America where the lifeline of the prosperous America was shattered

. This was the period that started in 1929 probably with the stock market crash and lasted throughout the 1930s.

In 1929 many business in America started to hang new signs on their doors, announcing out of Business. Millions of workers were informed that the paycheck they were getting mostly at the end of the week was the last paycheck. Soon many people did not have money to pay for food, clothes, or housing.

The Great Depression was characterized by long bread lines and soup kitchens. Long breadlines covering entire city blocks were familiar sites throughout all the towns and cities of America. Breadlines were queues of people to a soup kitchen (a building where charity organizations offered free bread and soup for the masses of hungry Americans).

One man described these common scenes of bread lines in Chicago. His words describe the sad story of many people in American cities and towns during the Great Depression.

In Garland Court back of the library, special garbage cans were set out by the thoughtful kitchen help of the restaurant. The garbage cans contained bread heels [crusty end slices of bread], and hundreds of starving men and women gratefully helped themselves. At the other garbage cans, people did their own sorting, stopping to chew on bones and bits of meat.

In warm weather, Grant Park was full with thousands of men and women sleeping atop newspapers on the wet grass. When it turned cold, a thousand shanties went up overnight along the lakefront the shacks were made of tin signs and ancient boards, but they had chimneys and primitive heating systems.

At the Pixley and Ehlers cafeteria Id see a shabbily dressed man sit down with a 5 cent cup of coffee and put 10 spoons of sugar into it for nourishment. Then he might pour a fourth of a bottle of catsup into a glass of water and stir it until it became free tomato juice.

by: Dr Chris Kanyane

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