Family pressure in great depression Essay Example For Students

Family pressure in great depression Essay 1. Family pressure during the great depression was unlike any the U.S. has ever seen. Everything about families changed in the 1930s. Couples during the depression delayed marriage, and at the same time the divorce rates dropped because people could not afford to pay for two households. Birthrates also dropped and for the first time in American history below the replacement level. Income was closed to none in all families; regular income had dropped by 35% just in the years Hoover was in office. Families had a lot of stress; some pulled together and made do with what they had others pushed away. People turned to who ever they had, family, friends, and after all else the government. Although there were rich people in the depression as well that the depression did not effect at all who were oblivious to the people suffering around them. By Franklin Roosevelts inauguration the unemployment rate was up to 25% only increasing till the 1940s. Within families the role played changed as well. W omen and children were now working to put bread on the table. Fathers would despise sons for becoming the main source of income for a family. Unemployed men had a deep lack of self respect. That often led them to running away from there families forever. Because many men ran out or stopped caring the womens role was enhanced and became working women. Black women found it easier to find work a servants, clerks, textiles, workers, ect. Work made all womens status go up in their homes. Most minorities were affected very little by Franklins Roosevelts New Deal. They were last hired, first fired in the depression most black males were completely rejected and either had no work or the worst jobs there were. During the years of the depression all families had hard times. 2. By 1933 millions of Americans were out of work. Hundreds of thousand of men, women, and children roamed the country in search of food and shelter. Bead lines were not an uncommon sight. One of the earliest steps to aid the unemployed was the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps. This program designed to bring relief to the young men of America ages 18 to 25. In this program the CCC would enroll these men in camps across the country for around $30 a month. This was a semi-military style job almost two million men took place in the CCC. They took part in conservation projects such as planting trees to maintain national forest, eliminating steam pollution, creating fish, animal sanctuaries, and conserving coal, petroleum, shale, gas, sodium and helium deposits. Jobs also came from the Civil Works Administration with jobs such as teaching to highway repairs. The National Recovery Administration established with the national industrial recovery act practiced generating more jobs so more b uying would come. The NRA was declared unconstitutional in 1935 because of over regulation as recovery began to come into play. Also through the NIRA workers were given the right to Bargain with their employers through unions their own choice. 3. President Roosevelt had set up a series of New Deal decisions that had to pass through the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional even in light of the countries economy and state of depression. The series of anti-New Deal decisions by the Supreme Court angered President Roosevelt and prompted him to attempt to reform the federal court system itself. This made a court packing that would have let Franklin Roosevelt appoint six justices to the Supreme Court. It became a huge political debate with the Federal Government. When the Supreme Court Ruling against the New Deal; Pro New Dealers called it Black Monday. The Justices were strickly endearing to the constitution. Franklin Roosevelt was worried they would reject all of his New Deal proposals. The Supreme Court was now divided into groups, one saying, the meaning of the Constitution does not change with the ebb and flow of economic events. The antiNew Dealers In the court continued to reject many proposals. Ro osevelt still had yet to name one member of his own on the supreme court. In 1936 Franklin won in re election. In 1937 a justice switched sides. When