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How Did The Great Depression Affect Families

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The Great Depression

During the great depression, the lives of most every American was disrupted. The effects of the depression sent waves throughout the world from women having to work with the economy being crippled. The life of many families was shattered which separated children from their families. Many banks were shut down due to the drop in the stock market. The thought of living the American dream was no a blur for people could not buy nor own deteriorating their lives. The Great Depression had an immense impact on the lives of families. The average family income was nearly fifty percent lower previous to the depression began. Millions of families were evicted from their home due to losing their savings. “Children of impoverished families, recalling memories of family life during the 1930s, often remembered their fathers as emotionally distant and indifferent”. Teens rode on freight trains or hiked on mountains and roads to look for work. Families with small children often did not have food so the children were …show more content…
“Although the Great Depression was relatively mild in some countries, it was severe in others, particularly in the United States”; twenty-five percent of workers and thirty-seven percent of non-farmers were out of work. Farmers lost their farms and family houses were foreclosing left and right. The US began to recover, but not fast enough before another depression hit. For this reason is why the entire decade of the 1930’s is referred to as the great depression. “The American economy had yet to fully recover from the Great Depression when the United States was drawn into World War II in December 1941”. With this came many reforms by the government to prevent a disaster of this size to happen again. Social security created for the government to take over the responsibility for the elderly population, also giving the involuntarily unemployed unemployment

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