Time of the Great Depression; Relevant to Of Mice and Men

By: Ryan Trevino, Max Hanson, and Alison Cable

The Great Depression; Family Fun

To pass the time and with little to no money families would play new board games such as "Monopoly" and "Scrabble" which were first sold during the 1930s. Some families had fun putting together puzzles. Baseball was popular to play and to watch (in person, not on television). Life was made to be enjoyed, even going to school could be fun by racing on horseback on the way there.

The Great Depression; Crime

During the Great Depression, crime came in many forms, there were a lot of stories about gangsters in the newspapers. Miners and autoworkers sometimes turned violent during labor strikes. Some minor problems were; stealing watermelons, overturning outhouses, and illegal fishing techniques. The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, known as the Prohibition Amendment, was adopted in the 1920s and made the making, selling, possessing, and consuming of alcoholic drinks illegal.

o In the early 1930s, liquor was illegal, but people in Nebraska found ways to buy or make their own alcohol.
o Other illegal activities such as prostitution and gambling, also grew during the 1930s.

The Great Depression; Schooling

The value of farm land plummeted, and that meant that property taxes that supported schools fell as well. Some school districts couldn't pay their teachers. One-room schools were still common in York County, Nebraska, and other Great Plains states.
o Children from a verity of grades sat in one room, often taught by a teacher that was not much older than the students.

Teenagers sometimes had to quit school to work full time on the family farm.

The Great Depression; Farm Life

The York County farm families didn't have heat, light or indoor bathrooms like the people who lived in town. Many farm families raised most of their own food, eggs, and chickens. They would also get milk and beef from their own cows, and vegetables from their gardens. Farm families would get together with neighbors at school programs, church dinners, or dances. When the dryness, heat, and grasshoppers destroyed the crops, farmers were left with no money to buy groceries or make farm payments. o Some people lost hope and moved away.

The Great Depression; Causes

The cause of the great depression was thought to have begun in October 29,1929, when the big stock market crashed.
o It ended in 1941 when World War II started

It really didnt take full affect till 1933, when there were a lot of runs on banks.
o More than 11,000 of the nations 25,000 banks had failed because people were withdrawing their money.

The nation's total income rose from $74.3 billion in 1923 to $89 billion in 1929 Couldnt pay Europe so the cut us off on trade. The Dust Bowl dried up the land so there were no crops and farmers couldnt pay for their farms and groceries.

Migrant Workers Then

A migrant worker is someone who is a migrant (someone who moves from place to place) that only workers for a few months.
o They live, in horrible conditions, on the farm they worked at and food and water was provided.
o Farmers would house migrant workers in shanties, shacks, chicken coops, barns, portable wagons, and even open fields.

o They get paid a small amount.

o Migrant workers in California who had been making 35 cents per hour in 1928 made only 14 cents per hour in 1933. o Sugar beet workers, in Colorado, wages decrease from $27 an acre in 1930 to $12.37 an acre three years later.

Sociologist Paul S. Taylor estimated that there were between 200,000 and 350,000 migrant workers traveling throughout the United States, in 1937. Migrant workers were shunned by the local communities, often seen as racial and class outcasts.

Migrant Workers Now

There are about 175 million migrants around the world today.
o Over half of them are women.

More than half of all farm workers, 52 of every 100, are unauthorized workers with no legal status in the United States. In Bahrain there are over 458,000 migrant workers, around 77 percent of the total work force, public and private. The number of child laborers on America's farms today range from 300,000 to 800,000.
o Children who are 14 or older can work unlimited hours in the fields before or after school hours.
o They can start work at age 12 if accompanied by a parent.

Most are from Mexico and Central America, but many are also African American, Haitian, Anglo, and Asian. Some of the jobs they do are apple picking, strawberry picking, orange picking and other seasonal fruits.

Sites:

Life on the GDhttp://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_22.html Causes of the GD- http://www.thegreatdepressioncauses.com/ o http://www.gusmorino.com/pag3/greatdepression/index.html Migrant workers infohttp://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDet ailsWindow?zid=3b910316b8685294b829ad8774e7386c&action=2& catId=&documentId=GALE%7CCX3404500355&userGroupName=l anc41582&jsid=961bb480a003d44c401a0f7118808ef2 Migrant workers now- http://www.ilo.org/global/standards/subjectscovered-by-international-labour-standards/migrant-workers/lang-en/index.htm o http://www.extension.org/pages/9960/migrant-farm-workers:our-nations-invisible-population o http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/30/bahrain-abuse-migrantworkers-despite-reforms o http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/migrantchildren.html