On the infamous “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929, Wall Street collapsed due to heavy trading prices on the New York Stock Exchange. President Hoover claimed the U. S. Business was “on a sound and prosperous basis,” but panic set in. The collapse of the U. S. Economy, which was the largest in the world, caused global shock. By 1931, the Great Depression affected not only the U. S. , but the world. “By 1933, 30 million people in industrial nations were unemployed, five times the number of unemployed four years before” (Brinkley 651).
During the Great Depression, unemployment rates ere very high, incomes dramatically fell, and many businesses failed. Oklahoma took a hard hit in the sass’s. On top of the stock market crash, in the early sass’s, Oklahoma had severe droughts and heavy dust storms. Hoping for a better life in California, many “Skies,” people from Oklahoma, headed west to work as migrant fruit pickers. The film version of John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath, the Attaining essay, and many other works describe the terrible disappointment the Skies found in California: unemployment, low wages, little hope, shanty-towns, and brutal working conditions.
The Skies’ experience in California reflects the national experience of Americans during the Great Depression. Yet, the Skies’ experience in California differed from the national experience of Americans during the Great Depression. The combination of the similarities and differences between the Skies in California and the people of the United States represents the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, many people who were unemployed were from urban cities and rural towns were on government relief. “The typical unemployed urban worker on relief, Hopkins found was a white man, thirty-eight years of age, and head f the household… H]e had been more often than not an unskilled or semi-skilled worker in the manufacturing or mechanical industries. He had some ten years’ experience at what he considered his usual occupation. He had not finished elementary school. He had been out of any kind of Job lasting one month or more for two years, and had not been working at his usual occupation for two and half years” (Binder 174). Unlike the description above, the Goad family represented the unemployed workers from rural towns. These people were tenant farmers or sharecroppers, who lost their homes and were migrant workers, and lived in extended families.
A combination of rural and urban people were no government relief. Many people in the United States were tenant farmers or sharecroppers, before the Great Depression. After the Great Depression many of these tenant farmers or sharecroppers were forced of the land. Originally, the government under Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt responded to the Great Depression by raising interest rates, tax rates, and cutting farm acreage. “Farm income had declined sixty percent between 1929 and 1932. A third of all American farmers lost their land”(Brinkley 655). Many tenant farmers and sharecroppers were forced off their and due to land reduction.
The Goad family in The Grapes of Wrath represents the tenant farmers who lost their land. Although, many tenant farmers and sharecroppers lost their land, many Americans came trot cities and towns Skies popular destinations in California were “Los Angels, which attracted almost 100,000 Skies between 1935 and 1940, with about a quarter as many going to the cities of San Francisco and San Diego. Of the two major destinations for agricultural workers, the San Joaquin Valley attracted 70,000 and the San Bernardino/lamellar Valley region 20,000 migrants” (Windcheater).
The Goad family represents the 20,000 migrants who traveled to the San Bernardino/ Imperial Valley region, but Bakersfield and other regions in California. Massive unemployment caused people to migrate, during the Great Depression. Industrial Northeast and Midwest cities and rural areas suffered massive unemployment. Unemployment had a heavy toll on the elderly, young people, unskilled workers, uneducated people, rural Americans, African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, immigrants, and women, or anyone who was not a Caucasian male suffered. The Goad family in The Grapes of Wrath represents the Caucasian
Americans who came to California and worked as Migrant fruit pickers, a traditionally Hispanic Job. Before the Great Depression, Asians, Hispanics, and African Americans could get employment in unskilled industries or the industrial or service industries. Before the Great Depression, women held Jobs like salesclerk, stereography, and other service positions. When the Great Depression hit, they often lost their Jobs to Caucasian Americans needing a Job. Unemployed Southwestern Caucasian Americans wanted the Jobs held by minorities and women, which were formerly considered beneath them.
Northwestern cities like “Cleveland, Ohio, has an unemployment rate of fifty percent in 1932; Akron, sixty percent; Toledo, eighty percent” (Brinkley 664). However, California had an unemployment rate of “twenty-six percent during 1932″(Brinkley 664). The national rate overall seems less than individual cities.
