Chapter 22 Section 2 Critical Thinking #3

3) How was what happened to men during the Great Depression different from what happened to women and children?
-each group's role in their families
- the changes each group had to make
what help was available to them

Men had traditionally been the person who supported the family and worked, and many men had a hard time adjusting to the common unemployment of the 30s. Many men were very discouraged by wandering the streets begging for a job, and some abandoned their families after they weren't able to provide in any way. Many also became hobos, and would travel from city to city and go to homeless shelters, begging and waiting in food lines. Some city charities did have direct relief programs, but none were enough to support a family; the highest was $2.39 for each family, in New York City (page 681).
Women had to become more involved with tasks such as sewing clothes, canning food and managing household budgets. These weren't hugely different from women's traditional roles in the households, but in the prosperity of the '20s, tasks such as sewing and canning and worrying about budgets probably weren't a very big issue. Although women had started to work outside of the home in the late 1800s, many more had to start working and were payed less than men, and as the years of economic depression, many people began to resent women with jobs, particularly married women. People were angry that women would have jobs while men were wandering the streets unemployed, and some places would not hire married women. But in contrast to the men who were begging and going to shelters, many women were too embarrassed to admit that they were starving or homeless (pages 681-682).
Children during the depression suffered from malnutrition when families could not afford decent food. At the same time as many children were seeking help for malnutrition and rickets, cities cut their child-welfare programs in order to cut their budgets. Many schools were closed or the years shortened by school boards because of the lack of money, and about 2,600 schools were closed by 1933, and about 300,000 students were out of school. Many children had to get jobs to support their families instead of going to school, and would work in sweatshops. Teenagers would travel the country in freight trains, looking for employment and an escape from the depressing environment of cities (page 682).