I-Search Paper (The Great Depression)

What were the lasting effects of the Great Depression on the American people?

Part 1: The Search Story

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the word recession? It most likely would be poverty, sorrow, difficulty, or at least something in the realm of the latter two. You can immediately recognize that this is something characterized with economic or financial decline. The Great Depression is something you hear and immediately think of such a catastrophic event that devastated many Americans in the past. When this event in history is given attention there seems to always be a focus on the hardships that took place while the event was happening or as the stock market began to crash. I have always been prompted to study the effects of such a crisis in relation to financial or economic misfortune. I think there tends to be a lack of focus on the lasting effects that such an economic downturn had on the American people that is not in terms of economic trend or financial disparity and how it paved a road for even more calamity in the future to come. Before starting research on events that took place following the period 1929 to 1933, known as the Great Depression, I already knew some important developments that had taken place during these years and what led to this disastrous crisis. The stock market crash of 1929 that prompted “Black Tuesday” led to a complete disappearance of consumer confidence in the stock market and what followed directly impacted the American people. This economic crisis led to a rise in unemployment, a decrease in wages, and a decline in buying power. All these factors contributed to the difficult quality of life that was brought upon working class Americans in the years to follow. As the era of the Great Depression drew to a close and the economy began to repair, the aftermath instilled fear into the American people leaving many skeletons of despair in its path. The consequences of this infamous recession was what I wanted to focus on for research. I wanted to find out the residual complications that followed such a turning point in American history and how it changed the perceptions of the American people. I was specifically interested in learning more about how these repercussions impacted the lives of people in America and what adaptations were forced upon the population because of this horrendous downfall. My search was motivated by a sheer curiosity for this topic because it is always described and presented as a total cataclysm, but I found it interesting how it is never really brought up again throughout history. I was interested if this event was connected to later historical events and the different struggles that were to come proceeding this incident. One of the first sources I stumbled upon, directly answered my question about how this interfered with the lives of Americans and not only their financial security. I was able to understand how the Great Depression propelled average citizens around the country with no choice but to acclimate to a new way of living. The other source that I uncovered through research actually led me in a new direction, while I wanted to stray away from a focus on financial struggle I learned about an event that was a perfect representation of how the impact of the Great Depression formed further consequences for the economy and the quality of life Americans would experience. The sources I found helped to shed light on what life was really like for Americans in the years that followed after the Great Depression and how it surprisingly continued to affect the economy years down the line.

Part 2: The Search Results

To begin my research I wanted first to have a quick refresher about the time period because it had been a couple weeks since we originally studied this topic. I started by going back to the module titled “The Great Depression” and read through the information again. Once I had a more conscious understanding of the time period I wanted to study I began to use Google. I like to start researching this way in order to find key topics about the specific question I want to answer. I kept the search very broad and I usually just skim over the small description under the links that pop up when using this search engine. I noticed that I was having a hard time distinguishing key effects that occurred in the aftermath of the depression. Once I understood that either my question was too broad or too specific to put into Google, I immediately went to using databases for research material. I started using the Library of Congress as the first database to search through because our professor suggested this collection as a good place to start when I had posted my I-Search paper plan to our class padlet. I am so thankful for this advice because I used this database for the majority of the topics and readings I combed through to gather the information I needed to answer this question. I also used the National Archives Catalog to get a deeper understanding about the scope of the world during this time period and not only what was happening in America. I used this catalog as more of a timeline to reference back to when exploring information over a broad time period. After a lot of reading and analyzing I wanted to take the research into my own hands even more. I decided to look for reputable websites in order to specify the search and pinpoint certain aspects of the world that would be most important for the topic of the Great Depression. I found the website Federal Reserve History extremely helpful for narrowing down what I truly wanted to uncover from my question about the lasting effects of the depression. The website featured many essays about the economy during the time period I was researching as well as, a great timeline to understand how the economy was affected in the years that followed the most famous recession. The website also offered biographies of important figures during the timeline I was focused on which aided in a complex understanding of how others experienced these events in the world rather than just information about what was happening at the time. I never had to really change or manipulate the question I needed answered. I had to just discover different databases and primary sources to utilize, in other words I couldn’t just use the first article I found.

To begin answering, “What were the lasting effects of the Great Depression on the American people?”, let's start with the changes that were introduced to citizens at the time. After the stock market crash of 1929, many agricultural workers were displaced and unemployed with a rising unemployment rate of 30%. Those who owned land and made profits of their own had their farms stripped from them due to bank collections, economic pressure became too much to manage for large landholders. Even as the economy began to stifle itself together, the southern Great Plains was no longer suitable to yield a harvest due to the coming of dust storms in 1932. Thousands of farmers were forced to uproot their families and migrate to other parts of California in order to survive. Although California was considered the ‘promised land’ during this time it was to no avail. The state was also experiencing its own hardship due to the depression and agricultural workers were still left looking for work. As time went on, it was not until America entered World War II that we would see the economy begin to finally bounce back. However, many migrants who were still unable to find work enlisted in the war to find another source of income which gave job opportunities to those who did not go off and fight in the war (The Migrant Experience, Library of Congress). I find it devastating that those who lived through such a difficult time period in American history only found themselves in another misfortunate circumstance. The lives of so many farmers were changed drastically in such a short time period and it was never the same after. These people were not given an opportunity to reconcile what they had lost from the economic downturn and their quality of life was altered for the worse. These people not only lost their financial security but also their homes and the places they grew up. Their everyday lives were completely reversed because they were forced to mainly focus on finding work and surviving. Even when the economy was doing better, by going off to war these people faced the same challenges in regards to uprooting their lives in order to make a living and provide for a family.

As stated previously, the economy did begin to recover in the years following the Great Depression. As Americans began seeing an increase in economic security during World War II another recession swept the country yet again. The recession of 1937 occurred during the reconstruction period after the depression, in other words policymakers named it “the recession within the Depression” and it sounds as bad as it seems. In comparison to past economic downturns in history, this recession had quite an impact, “According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the 1937 contraction, which lasted from May 1937 until June 1938, was America’s third-worst recession of the twentieth century, paling in comparison to the 1920 and 1929 downturns” (“Recession of 1937-38”, Federal Reserve History). In 1936, Fed policymakers doubled reserve requirement ratios which in turn prompted the Treasury to issue a new sterilization policy and these both led to the large contraction in the economy. While later in 1937 the recession drew to a close and the economy began its rise to normalcy due to both previous policies being halted. This recession within a recession serves as a cautionary tale for Americans which can be explained by the fact that there is a natural tendency for policy makers to pull back accomodation too early. This decline also served as a guide for precautionary measures during the 2008 recession in which mid-recovery contractions were more closely looked at to avoid repeating the same mistake (“Recession of 1937-38”, Federal Reserve History). Before researching to find an answer to the question I posed earlier, I never knew about this small recession that had such a significant impact on the Federal Reserve as well as the future economy. It’s truly something to take note of as it is obvious the economy goes through many cycles or many ups and downs. If it was not for this event in the past, who's not to say that it could have been a mistake made in recent years and it would have taken the United States economy even longer to recover from the recession in 2008. This served as a sufficient model to prove that certain policies do not always have a positive impact.

Part 3: Reflecting on Your Research Question

In conclusion, from the entire research process I learned a lot of events that took place during the Great Depression had lasting impact on the American people and the economy in the years to follow. I learned that in historical research you can find a lot of things that are interconnected after analyzing events that took place and understanding how the timeline of American history has played out. The research process really presented a different perspective of how the economy was not the only thing that needed reparation after the Great Depression, that many different aspects of life were also affected by this downturn. The research process helped place a larger emphasis on the intertwined events in history as well as the consequences of catastrophes that are not always highlighted throughout history.

The life altering changes that many agricultural workers had to face had a significant lasting effect on the American people. As noted in the first source mentioned, the lives of thousands were uprooted and displaced in the years that followed the depression. Many Americans were forced to migrate away from where they had lived their entire lives and had no choice but to search high and low for work. Their daily lives were directly affected by the downfall of the economy and this in turn caused the quality of life to go down as well. There was not a means to directly help the people that were harmed throughout these terrible circumstances and these Americans were required to persevere and start all over completely independent. This way of living continued through World War II even with the notion of a growing economy, farm workers were still given the short end of the stick when it came to a means of survival.

The economy will continue to be affected by this tragic occurrence in history and even in the wake of an increasing economic cycle, there can still be repercussions due to the severity of the Great Depression. Americans were not equipped to handle the depression at the time and policymakers did not have a guide to repair the damages that were done. Therefore, the recession of 1937 displayed another weakness of the American economy and how fragile it can be with a change of policy or pace. The 1937 recession warns many to proceed with caution in the future and has shown promise in putting the economy on the right path during the 2008 recession. The lasting effects of the Great Depression on the American people can be characterized as a struggle to survive in difficult times and how the economy can truly alter the life of an average citizen. The economic cycle is ever changing and in order to continue on a path to prosperity it is important for us to learn and revise from past experiences to ensure the same mistakes are not replicated in the future and lead the American people away from hardship and towards security.

Citations

Source 1: https://www.loc.gov/collections/todd-and-sonkin-migrant-workers-from-1940-to-1941/articles-and-essays/the-migrant-experience/ (The Migrant Experience, Library of Congress)

Source 2:

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/recession-of-1937-38(Recession of 1937-38, Federal Reserve History)