SOURCE ANALYSIS THE GREAT DEPRESSION
TASK: PARAGRAPH RESPONSE Causes Effects Emotions Write a paragraph about the Great Depression including: - What the Depression was and its causes - How it affected people (jobs, living conditions, etc) - The emotional affect it had on people Include 1 primary and 1 secondary source quote
WHAT IS THE GREAT DEPRESSION? - Started in 1929 and ended in mid-late 1930s - Affected most countries across the world - Australia was one of the worst hit economies CAUSES - Multiple causes - Fall in export prices due to competition - Fall in overseas loans - Government being unable to pay back its loans - Stock Market crash 1929 was the trigger
WHAT IS THE GREAT DEPRESSION? What does that mean for real people? Wage cuts (wages lowered by 10%) Mass unemployment Higher taxes, lower war pensions Longer working hours Can t afford to repay debts Lose homes or possessions to debt collectors Many people rely on charity/welfare to survive
PRIMARY SOURCES: UNEMPLOYMENT AVERAGE (%) 1930-4 GERMANY 31.8 AUSTRALIA 23.4 CANADA 20.7 UNITED STATES UNITED KINGDOM 19 19.2 Debated statistics: There is much debate about the figures. The estimates do not take into account: - Underemployment - People were earning below living wage - Does not include women or teenagers % OF WORKFORCE UNEMPLOYED 1929 12.0 1931 37.8 POLAND 12.3 JAPAN 5.6 Unemployment Rates Source: Lowenstein, Weevils in the Flour. Hyland House: Melbourne. 1978 Australian Unemployment Rates Source: Lowenstein, Weevils in the Flour. Hyland House: Melbourne. 1978
CONDITIONS With wages lowered, many people found they could not pay their bills or afford to feed their families Many men travelled to find work in different areas As people were evicted from their homes shantytowns sprung up on the outskirts of cities The government introduced dole rations where people received a ticket to collect food from the store Some people had to travel to escape debt. Some changed their name from town to town so they could rent a house.
LIFESTYLE Alcoholism, domestic violence, gambling and crime are reported by many to have increased during the Depression. Many were starving, cold and hopeless. People needed to be creative in order to survive. We didn t have blankets, we made them out of corn bags. You d undo them and sew them together and dye them And you d make kids clothes out of flour bags by hand I had one dress. I d wash it of a night and hope it would be dry of a morning. Source: Phyllis Acland. In Lowenstein, Weevils in the
WOMEN Of course it was unthought of that boys should do anything around the household It was common for a woman to come home exhausted after a day s washing and scrubbing to find the unemployed menfolk leaning over the gate waiting for her to cook tea. It was Many employers beneath a man s dignity to help refused to hire married with the housework women. Lowenstein (1978) Government officials visited houses unannounced and questioned neighbours to see if dole recipients were taking care of their children. Single women were most at risk.
Working class children left school at thirteen or fourteen Usually the families needed the wages of teenage children who were often the sole earners. Jobs were easier to find for the young. Lowenstein (1978) CHILDREN In the last two or three years I went to school without shoes. I felt cold and I felt bad because others had all these thingsbirthday parties, shoes school books, oranges- which we never saw.
EXPLAINING THE DEPRESSION Both Australia and the UK handled the Great Depression far better with conservative economic management than the USA s New Deal of government spending. Growth in Australia and the UK during the 1930s also outstripped that in the USA. (Henderson, 2012) As Wendy Lowenstein writes, depressions do not have a distinct beginning and end, and individuals experience economic hardships in very different ways. During the Great Depression, many Australians lost confidence in the abilities of their government representatives. A number of radical or extremist organisations gathered strength and popularity as a result of the largescale public dissatisfaction. On the political left communist, socialist, workers and unemployed organisations actively opposed forced house evictions, while nationalistic and fascist-style groups like the New Guard enjoyed increased membership on the right of politics. Australian Government (last updated 2014) Depression-era hardships had fuelled the rise of extremist political movements in various European countries, most notably that of Adolf Hitler s Nazi regime in Germany. D & B Mann (2014)
PARAGRAPH RESPONSE Make reference to: - What the Depression was and its causes - How it affected people (jobs, living conditions, etc) - The emotional affect it may have had on people Include quotes - 1 primary source - 1 secondary source Connecting ideas as a result therefore led to widespread has been described as