Oral History of the Great Depression

Jane Yoder grew up in a middle class family in Evanston, Illinois as her family struggled to have success in the hard times of the Great Depression. Her father  was a very intelligent man, but struggled through the difficulties of schizophrenia. I found this story very interesting because Jane had a personality in which she did not really care about how others thought about her and the actions that she made. As many other kids had different clothes, Jane did not have the luxury that the other kids did and was sometimes judged because of the clothes that she wore. Her father did everything in his power to provide for his family, but in the times of the Great Depression it was very hard to make a living and Jane lived everyday with the uncertainty if she would get to eat food each day. Her Father went through a lot of physchological abuse in these hard times, however he was able to move past them as he was employed by the WPA. Once again kids judged Jane because her father was working for the WPA, but she didn't care what they thought because this was the best option for her family as it was able to get money to supply food for his family. Many other kids had parents who were doctors, nurses, and other successful jobs but it wasn't that way for Jane's family. Jane said, "Well, how nice. They had respectable employment, In my family, there was no respectable employment. I thought, you don't know what it's like"(129). This shows that her family was not able to get high class jobs like being a doctor, and shows that they would take any job possible that provided a good opportunity at provided enough money to supply for their families. This can relate to immigration that we learned about in the last unit because Jane and her family struggled to find ways to success as they were in a poor environment and like many immigrants they came to America with nothing and had difficulties getting a successful job and being able to provide food for their families every night. Her son Tom thought about the way that Jane lived in her life and described how he could not imagine having to live the difficulties everyday of not knowing if there will be food on the table. In the time that Tom grew up in many things have changed and the rate of poverty has decreased. As Tom described he would never be able to go through what his mother had to go through shows that today's society is more demanding than it was back then as not as many citizens have the food uncertainty that Jane had. After reading this it made me think about my life and how fortunate I am to be living in the house that I am with having food everyday throughout my whole life. I never have experienced this torture that some of these people suffered through the Great Depression and I applaud these people because they really showed that they had a high character of courage throughout their lives.

Peggy Terry was known as a spokeswomen for the southern whites and she lived in a time similar to Jane where the unemployment rate was very high. People did anything in their willpower to find shelter to live in and many citizens had to resort to areas such as: cardboard boxes, tents, and even holes in the ground. Many of these areas were destroyed by terrible dust storms that destroyed many of these homes and caused physical and mental damage to these people. This led to many suicides to the citizens and Peggy described it as she said, "They went flat broke and they committed suicide on the strength of it, nothing else"(139). This proves that many people could not handle to struggles no longer of this grueling life and figured they had nothing else to live for. Many people resorted to blaming President Hoover for all of the problems that led to the Great Depression, but this economic downfall cannot be blamed solely on one man because it was several other factors that led to this. This can relate to WWI that we just learned about because just as Hoover was the only person blamed for the Great Depression, Germany was the only country that was responsible for the war and they had to take sole responsibility for it. One place or person cannot be blamed for huge events like these because the other side had to have some participation in these events in order for them to occur. Peggy and her family struggled like Jane to have food everyday as the only thing that they had in their house was mustard. She had to go to the soup kitchen everyday looking for a meal for the day. Peggy got married at 15 and she and her husband traveled a lot by hitchhiking. Many people were generous and drove them to destinations and gave them food as they felt bad for the poverty that they were living in. I can connect to this story because a few years back I volunteered to serve food at the soup kitchen in the city. It was a great experience because being able to serve food to these people was great as they were very appreciative of us and was very nice to us. I now realize what these people have had to go through and these soup kitchens are a really nice piece of society to help out people in poverty.