The Great Depression’s Effect on America’s Social Fabric

A black blizzard had engulfed the people of America, destroying homes, businesses, and ideas. No it was not the Dust Bowl but the huge threat that was the Great Depression. Ironically the rich that had influenced the Depression were not affected as harshly as the middle class working people of America. The American Dream had been thwarted in just a day, Black Tuesday (October 24, 1929) and the busload of conservative presidents with their laissez -faire attitudes and economic policies looked upon the people to dig themselves out of their financial situations. The cause of the Great Depression had to be due to the lop-sided distribution of wealth among the wealthier class. With an already unstable social system, one falsity in the system could thoroughly affect the American people. Such acts as the Haley-Smoot Tariff (1930) and Fordney-McCumber Tariffs (1922) created surpluses among American businesses making it pivotal to the producer that the consumer bought in bulk. The variable that the executive branch precariously overlooked was how could the consumer consume goods that were entirely out of their budget? But was the damage too great in number for the American people to get back on their feet? What it took was a president that was brave enough to evoke another progressive era known as his New Deal. The Great Depression’s effect on America’s social fabric was drastic with an increase in unemployment rates, economic farm losses, destruction of families, and a transformation from laissez-faire politics.



The years subsequent to the roaring twenties, the nation was done with its social revolution and was ready to dodge yet another pitfall. Monumental to America’s history during the Great Depression, 25% of the nation’s population was unemployed. Unlike other years the lower class could not be blamed for their unemployment due to laziness, but because of the lack of job opportunities. Republican presidents during the early twentieth century had not picked up on this and did little to assist in plucking the thorn out of the side of the American people. Such presidents as Herbert Hoover believed in a policy of voluntarism, but it came down to the fact that there were scarcely any establishments to commit to! Social maladies such as hunger and depression increased significantly. Without the progressive-minded leaders of yore to aid, the American people had to survive the first couple of years of the Depression alone and without a leader. Most businesses were firing and not hiring, while trying to clean up the mess the executive branch and caused.



The hardest hit section of the American social fabric had to be farmers. A precursor to the famer depression was the Dust Bowl of 1933. Farmers and tenants were asked to survive fluctuating wholesale prices while still trying to make a living. Along with textile factories and coal mines, agriculture departments were both constantly and unremittingly depressed. Farmers’ income had declined from $5.7 billion in 1929 to $1.7 billion the following decade. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins helped to establish the Agricultural Adjustment Agency (AAA) which assisted the farmers in reducing their crop surpluses which would raise farmer incomes nation wide. After the AAA was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the case Butler vs. United States (1936) American farmers became accustomed to their poverty stricken lifestyle and began to make it work for them in the form of labor unions. The American Federal Labor and The National Industrial Recovery Association had the same cause to decrease the unemployment rate and tackle fluctuating farming rates.



A lack of financial support could ruin any family, but to imagine that every family in America struggled in some way financially can be linked to the destruction of the idea of the “perfect household”. The increase in unemployment and increase in depression put the average family on edge, as if awaiting the arrival of the “pink slip”. With the inauguration of the twenty first amendment (February 20, 1933) the common thing to turn to was not ones family, but the simple caress that a case of alcohol provided. Like the enactment of prohibition ushered in the age of gangsters and bootleggers, the repeal of the eighteenth amendment ushered in the age of the disgruntled family.



The idea of laissez-faire, whatever will be, will be and one only gets what one deserves began to alter during the early 1930’s. The Great Depression made government realize that everyone suffers no matter who you are. In an attempt to fix the damages the wealthier class had dealt, many alphabetic reform agencies sprang up from the dusts to relieve the pain of the nation. Such agencies as the Home Owners’ Refinancing Agency (1933) and Securities and Exchange Commission (1934) attempted to ease the worker back into the workplace and ensure that a crisis like this never was to take place again. The Great Depression had also influenced the induction of social security which we as Americans still use to this day. The Depression did its part in changing the concept of Social Darwinism and developing the theory of a Democratic watchdog over Republican policies.



The Great Depression’s effect on America’s social fabric was louder than a bomb. The 1930’s paid homage to the death of the flapper girl and the birth of the depressed and unemployed gentleman. The Great Depression created a sort of political resurgence that would directly affect the American people than anything before it. The underlying causes of the widespread unemployment rates and peeved workers could be contributed to a do nothing government. The Great Depression was the wakeup call from the slumber that was the “Roaring Twenties” to prepare for the battle that was to come, WW2.