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dual credit american studies mrs littrell the great depression facebook blogs january 2012 examples of students blogs in facebook we used edmodo which is similar to facebook to post these blogs jonathon stewart journal entry 3-12-29 dear diary work is getting a lot tougher at the federal agency enforcing prohibition has become a tough job for our bureau to handle when congress passed the volstead act in 1929 they left us with a small amount of agents to be able to implement prohibition just last month the st valentine s day massacre took place in chicago and i am worried that something of that sort will happen in new york al capone and his gang have struck up quite a business in chicago and i have heard rumors that he has extended his exploits to new york as well rumors have also been circulating about the speakeasies in this city and we just don t have enough men to take them all down left and right men in my agency have succumbed to the bribes of the mob and have just turned their cheek when they saw illegal alcohol i know this because i have also received these bribes but i can t let myself agree to them i am worried for my family s safety because i know the mob will eventually threaten to hurt my family my wife has been on pins and needles since i took this job i know rough times are ahead for our country and i don t know what to expect with all of the problems with the stock market crashing i don t know how i will eventually be able to say no to all of the bribes my family simply needs the money i just wish everything could be back to what it was years ago when my family could enjoy a full and hearty meal and not have to worry about our safety all i know is that if the government doesn t take control of the situation with enforcing prohibition they might as well make it legal again -ernest collings role a once wealthy investor out of work in a breadline date january 17 1938 i can t believe this is what my life has become i used to be rolling in my own wealth indulging in the luxuries of a brand new automobile and other new appliances like vacuum cleaners and washing machines living comfortably with my wife and two daughters in my glorious estate on jefferson island life was at its best until i lost it all the day the market went down on october 29 1929 and i watched the ticker as it read off to me my gloomy future i nearly broke down to my knees right there in the middle of wall st in sadness fear and hopelessness now hear i am almost ten years later waiting at the breadline with other sorrow-filled souls just like me waiting to be given by the government the food for my family that i have a hard time affording what really baffles me here as i stand among some of my former brokers is that this has been my life for so long now yes i ve lasted through it all i had to sell the estate with all of its fancy gadgets and relocate to a small manhattan apartment where my wages for odd jobs i happen to find barely cover the rent which is why i find myself occasionally here in the breadline with no money left over to pay for food this is what i have done for years now my daughters helena and lily are old enough to be attending a university now but i haven t any money to help them on their own path luckily they both found jobs at a factory here in manhattan but the pay is terrible i guess things have gotten a little better since about five years ago when the market was so far down that a quarter of the nation s workforce had been laid off and i was so broke that the breadline became an everyday thing for me in that year 1933 my family and i spent most of our days in the dark and cold as our gas and electricity were shut of frequently and we were almost evicted twice nowadays we are doing a little better enough to maintain a somewhat healthy lifestyle and its only once or twice a month that we come up a little bit short and trips like these are necessary but its so degrading that i ve been trapped below my potential for so long it s about time i once again became a broker and give back to my family the life it once had and deserves.

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march 23 1932 dear diary i cant believe what is happening to my life right now i was living the high life as a vanderbilt i took vacations with my family on yachts i could go to any restaurant in nyc and ordered what i pleased my job as writer couldnt have gotten any better now since the 1929 stock market crash i am unemployed and i have lost all of my money i go to the breadline and soup kitchen each day to get food thank goodness prohibition has ended so i can at least drink again i used to live in a luxury apartment now i am down to living in a shantytown with the hobos sometimes i cry about my situation i cant even look myself in the mirror people cant even recognize me as a vanderbilt i try to look for work in any writing organization that i could but there were no jobs i still have many clothes to wear daily unlike other people who just only had the clothes on their back i considered myself well off more than others or maybe i was in denial i tried going to movies whenever i could to keep my mind out of this situation the only thing that kept my spirits up was 1936 olympics since i had no tv i would walk around to places that would broadcast it i look around nyc seeing kids who were sick and single mothers who looked depressed and worried some people were even committing suicide heck i am worried about my own life but i wont let it get the best of me i just hope i could make my money back again and get a job i wonder how my family is doing back in tennessee i cant even afford to call them i should write a letter to them it doesnt cost much and its simple or maybe i should get out of nyc to go to tennessee to go live with them at least they have a house to live in i believe that things could get better i hope i dont catch rickets or another one of these deadly diseases may 17 1932 journal entry today my farm was sold at a penny auction because i couldnt afford to pay back the bank i took out loans so i could expand my farm to meet the need for fresh produce for the past year the entire family has been eating as little as possible and wearing hand-me-down clothes to try to save money to pay back the bank we just couldnt make it luckily most of my farm friends came down to the foreclosure auction and refused to bid against me i bought back most of my equipment animals and even the house for less than six dollars molly is relieved and so are the boys i know they were worried that our friends wouldnt help us out they dont have as much faith in the iowa farm community as i do i have been to enough penny auctions to know that if it comes down to it other farmers will use physical force to stop other farmers from bidding against the original owner im sure the banks will eventually find a way to stop the penny auctions but right now it is the only way for us farmers to get out of debt less 19 year-old farmer w useless land it has been a mighty dry summer this year mighty dry we have been trying day in and day out my papa and me nothing seems to even wanna try to grow none we had a little bit of crops just barely sprouting up and then insects swooped in and done ate them all up there was nothin left after those stinkers came through i m maggie and my papa is all i have left now-a-days luckily we have some cattle left and a little bit of hay it s nothing much but it s enough to keep our bellies at bay so s we don t starve ya see we ve been on this here farm for what seems like my whole life and probably is my papa and mama built up this farm from nothin and now it is all going to be for nothin my mama passed away a while back and now my brother had to go live with our neighbors on account of him being very sick and all he had chills and the worst fever i ever laid eyes on we couldn t hardly afford to feed him but our neighbor s sons have taken up various jobs in town to help keep their money coming in seeing as their crops are shot too it s gettin so darn bleak livin out here that papa has started talkin bout movin into the city he says that there at least we can depend on my aunt and uncle until we can get back on our own two feet again i beg him every time he talks bout it to not move into the city i ve never lived there before and i am mighty scared at the prospect of going into a new area just willy-nilly of course papa does seem pretty dead-set on this on account of the fact that we have no money we re about to run out of livestock and having nothing to feed ourselves once they are gone there are also a lot of dust storms that come blowin by they always leave everything the house the animals and filthy everything just gets covered in dirt hopefully this whole mess will blow over soon and maybe papa and i can move back out here with my brother when he s well

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dear mom and pop life is going well here i still have a job and i m not making much but i get by i m sending a few dollars home because i ve heard in the papers things aren t going that well in the rural areas i hope all is well with you i worry a great deal about you and all the animals and land they tell all kinds of stories of men killing all their animals cause they know they can t keep them and about dust storms so thick you can t see an inch i hope you haven t experienced these terrors i m doing really well my friends and i go to the movies as often as we can to keep our spirits up there seems to be a sold out theatre every time it s so nice to meet so many other single and independent women in the city there seem to be more single women then married women those who are married seem to be having a hard time so many men are drinking and leaving their wives i know that you don t appreciate that i haven t found a suitable husband yet but trust me times have changed single women aren t thought of as spinsters anymore we re simply women taking charge of our future we don t need men to take care of us i ve also faced some discrimination at work many men think it isn t right that women have jobs and they don t they don t bug us too much but they seem to be gaining members every day no need to worry about my job or me though it seems that i ll be fine and my job will keep me afloat for quite a while i just bought myself a new brooch accessories are a special part of what i wear now because i don t have the money for new clothes that means i can just change up my earrings pearls or shoes and have an entirely new look it s really fun to spice up my look maybe when i save up enough you two can come up and we can go on a movie outing and do a bit of shopping i ve gotten great at finding the best bargains in town i think you two could use some city air write back soon i miss you dearly sincerely your little annie dear diary i started high school as a junior today i almost made mother let me stay home because i was so embarrassed about my clothing i have not received new clothes since my freshman year because of this depression but it is just sooo embarrassing when you go to a school where many people can afford to buy new clothes and shoes my shoes are so old that there are holes in the bottom and i can feel the ground hitting my feet when i walk i wrote a letter to the first lady without mother knowing i really need some new clothes and its not like i only asked for clothes for myself i asked for some for the entire family because of the democratic party being so involved in reform movements my parents have been able to get some work which is very surprising my father had to sell his farm in mississippi because he needed the money from the government so that he could feed us it was the day where many people were selling their farms so that they could pay their taxes and support their families he was talking about moving to califormia the other day apparently that is where many people are going to try and start over that does not make sense to me though because isnt the depression affecting the entire country i dont know i think he is starting to panic because winter is approaching and no one in our family has any warm clothes there is talk of me leaving along with my older brother tim to try and go find work so that we can get money to feed the rest of our family i may have to break eggs for forty hours a week instead of school but at this point ill do anything to helpy my family mother also talked to us about how to save our money today she said dont spend money you dont already have in your pocket i think they are trying to teach us to learn from their mistakes so that we dont make them also but its time for me to go help mother with dinner i shall write more later -love emily goyber

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john took the boys jack and james to look for work with him in the city today the boys are both sixteen in two weeks time that is certainly old enough to be taking care of themselves especially in these hard times john hasnt brought them home yet either they all were picked to work today or they are standing in the soup lines again john would have never lowered to stand in soup lines before black thursday but money is tight now more often than naught he is out of work and we need the money more than ever anna my daughter woke up again last night coughing mucus seems to be blocking up her throat so she cant breathe she refused to move from bed today as well unless john can get work today we cant afford to take her in to see the doctor i dont want to admit to john how badly she needs a doctor he feels such shame that he cant provide for us he used to work as an investor and there was always money cars parties nice clothes and never any worry about who was paying for it now it is all we can do to avoid being evicted from our apartment into the nearest hooverville i dont trust the look of those shanty towns if they must my boys will have to go live with my brother andrew before i will let them accompany me into that unfortunate place that is the only place for me however if i have to sell what is left of our furniture and jewelry to pay for medicine for anna it may be necessary however the last time i saw symptoms like this jack had come down with bronchitis the effects of that disease are even more dramatic on annas little body i dont believe anna can fight this off on her own and i dont believe she can fight it much longer either she becomes thinner and thinner every day her eyes have grown sunken and large in her malnourished face and there is no shine in her hair this illness will suck the very life out of her the longer it is allowed to live inside her body i may have to sell the boys last pair of good shoes but they will learn to do without they will not mind the sacrifice for their sister but who will buy i have written to mrs roosevelt begging for her assistance but i do not truly expect any reply what does the first lady know of loss and hardship and even if she does how can her empathy extend far enough to make a difference i fear i will not live to see the end of this dark age my only hope is to help my children survive it perhaps i can send anna to live with my father for a time every since president roosevelt signed into law that new social security act my mother and father have had a fairly steady income i do not think they would mind taking care of their granddaughter for a few weeks but i must first convince john he will not like that he cannot provide relief for his own daughter but i will not allow her to suffer perhaps fatally for his stubborn pride member of al capone s gang who took part in the st vday massacre henry hill the other day jack mcgurn came and told me the boss wants us to do a job so i says what kind a job and he tells me the boss needs moran and his boys dead so s to send a warnin that you don t mess wit us they been workin on our turf and we need to send a message that that ain t ok so we got a guy to call up moran sayin he got some good hooch and to meet at the moran gangs hideout we dressed up as police and came when the meetin was supposed to go down and told em to line up on the wall and got the rest of our boys to come and gunned em down they wasn t expectin that at all turns out moran sent a decoy but i think we got our message through we ain t going to get caught neither nobodies gonna squeal or else we got a message for them too dear reed my name is billy bob i am a straight up hillbilly from tennessee i am very uneducated and do what i can to put food on the table for my sister sally we have three kids named billy bob and jr making moonshine was not that profitable i did it as a side job in more cash i grow my own crops but that is not always enough and than others i would say we were a pretty poor family people had a the stores so they did not need moonshine however when there was no longer legal distribution and selling of any alcohol most moonshine it was dubbed moonshine because bootleggers made they would not get caught once prohibition started my business in booming anyone in need of a drink would turn to me therefore i it however being a moonshiner gave me a bad rep people saw me mind though because i was just trying to keep my family full my life my kids i am married to before prohibition order to make a little some years are better source of alcohol from prohibition started and people turned to it during the night so moonshine was made a good profit off of as a criminal i did not has improved since prohibition started and i am enjoying it

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dear mother im sorry i havent wrote you in a while first off i would like to say i love you and the children do to speaking of the children in order to afford all the expenses for the children i have had to learn a new hobby i hate to disappoint you mother but i have had to start stealing for my children they dont know and nor do they need to know i dont want them to pick up the bad habit due to the fact that i only receive 17-20 dollars a week just like the rest of the world right now i have had to find other ways to provide for them i told myself i wasnt going to ask you for any favors but i hate lieing to my children i was hopeing you could send some clothes jenny has grown out of hers it is cold and i don t want her getting sick i was talking to my neighbor debby about the crash big surprise she told me that she heard about 30 billion dollars had disappeared from americas economy isn t that about how much we spent fighting in world war 1 speaking of tell dad i love him to and the kids cant stop talking about his wild stories that he told them last time you visited i remember that entire week like it was just yesterday october 23 1929 you guys were on your last night here for your visit dad was ranting about stripped squirrels and brown zebras oh it even makes me laugh as i write it down the next morning was and is forever known as black thursday it shocked me just like it shocked everyone else in this dinky little town most people were in denial but i knew it was true black tuesday was when most people realized the reality of it all the beginning of the great crash i dont need to tell you what happened you were there oh look at that i was rambling sorry mother its just all i can think of just last week i had to steal milk from down the street apparently i did not pay the bill seems like i am not the only one i saw debby stealing wood from a fence to heat up her house i actually started doing that with her i needed to keep my children warm oh mother i am a monster at least my children dont know they think i have sent you letters every week asking for more supplies so if you do ever come back to visit please pretend that you know what they are talking about suzie asked me the other day if i was okay you want to know what i told her i told her yes only because i worry enough for my entire family i shouldnt have taken so much for granted before all this happened i was actually spending money i didn t have i bought all the children nice clothes and shoes they still have the shoes but i sewed some of the clothes together to make more blankets the shoe shinning guy outside of the butcher said that it was people like me that started the crash noe that i look into it he is right well i dont need to bring my problems into yours please mother just consider my request i love you with all my heart i will write back after i get your response sincerly your loving daughter sandra klemens role mother of a 3 year old with rickets journal entry january 18 1930 dear mom i am so worried about my baby my little baby girl rosie is so small she looks as if she is only one and she is three years old mom that s not supposed to happen not to me not to my family i have tried to give her absolutely everything i could possibly give her but there are no jobs mom how am i supposed to help her if there is no money i was always careful mom just like you told me to be all my life i put all my money in the bank to keep it safe well safer than i could keep it but the bank lost it all can you believe that i put my money in there to keep it safe and they lose it mamma i am at a lost john cannot even manage a shift at the dock anymore they are taking so few workers anymore he just can t get picked a few years ago i never would have seen this in my future john and i we were so hopeful we felt that love was the only thing we needed to get through anything so young and eager to get our family started we were so naive mom if i would have seen this coming i never would have brought my baby into the world we could have waited until times got better i cannot even explain to you the emotions i had on that black tuesday i just remember being so afraid of the future mamma people were jumping out of buildings they were so afraid of the future everyone s husbands were leaving them i cannot even begin to explain how happy i am that john did not leave us women are not allowed to work at all apparently with this few of jobs it is a complete crime for a woman to work but i am still so worried about rosie i can t even hug her mamma her bones hurt and there is nothing we can do about it do you know how that feels watching your baby be in so much pain and knowing there is nothing we can do about it the worst feeling i have ever had mamma you were so strong and wise i wish i could be half the woman you were i am writing to you in this diary because i know you re watching over me love delores dear mr president i am sure that you have been receiving an endless amount of letters from people all across the united states but i beg you to please read this letter my name is jonathan stewart i live in new york city and i just lost my job recently i have a wife and two kids and i am really having a difficult time accepting the fact that i do not have a job right now i mean i m the man of the house i m supposed to be the one who provides a quality life for my family by working and making money instead my family and i don t even have an apartment to live in because we don t have enough money we are currently living on the streets of new york city in a shantytown i am so ashamed that i cannot provide for my family that i am seriously considering leaving my wife and two kids i love my wife and kids so much and i would absolutely hate having to leave them but i do not know what else to do i also have no idea where i would go if i really did leave but i do not see any other options at this point i am too embarrassed with myself to stay i am sure that you have read about many situations that are very similar to mine and that is the exact reason why you should try your very hardest to get this country out of the mess that it is in life in the united states simply should not be how it is right now america was once the land of opportunity and you have the power to make it exactly that once again sincerely jonathan stewart jan 13 1933

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dear brother anthony i send you this letter out of the secrecy that you not show mom i know its very hard for her and all of us that i left but this is what needs to be done in order to try and save our family from starvation you are truely the best younger brother in the world and i know you are really doing a wonderful job im sure for mom by being the man of the house dont loose faith in our family i know we are all mad that our dad left us and we have every reason in the world to be mad at him for leaving us alone with nothing to help us survive but dear brother you just need to know the reason i left and i know you may be to young to understand but i also do see that you have had to grow up pretty fast lately i left you guys for a completely different reason than dad did he is a loser and what he did for us is unforgivable i left because i no longer believe that anyone in the family should have to skip a meal in order for the rest of us to be able to eat something so i left and now mom has one less mouth to feed i still love all you guys and i hope you can all love me the same for leaving but its just something that needs to be done as for my where abouts im soon going to bored a train and try to live life on the trains and maybe stop in a couple of towns and offer work for food or money i mean like mom always said who will be able to resisit my cute little sad face right now ive been living in this hooverville just a mile away from where you are ya i know mom said no matter what she will never live like this but hey these people are just like us just they have lost a little more just dont bring up food or money because by golly there will be a freenzie but you better listen to me dont you dare ever come here listen to me because i have made sure buy the time you get this i will be aboard a train take care of mom that is your job until you get back and you better promise me that i noticed that the dumb school we used to go to closed down well its about time i shure dont remeber learning anything important there like how to make money when the world has no jobs left but i guess i do miss all that time we had to be around other kids our age and have fun i have met a new friend though hes gonna go on the train with me hes different then alot of people i know tho gets mad at the world and politics alot but we r good friends he came from a much worse situation you know his dad worked in some big comapny and one night he jumped out the window with his wife poor bill he truely is such a gread guy he just says his parents didnt really love him anyways im his new family now listen im about running our of daylight to finish writing this to you but hey give everyone a kiss for me i love you all and help out mom as much as possible man someday when this is all over i will be able to come back and we can all be together again i love you man ill see you before you know it dont worry things will get better love john dear world greetings everybody let me tell you right now life just absolutely stinks sometimes i mean how could i be so stupid my broker vlademir mcpicklestein told me that i would be wise to use credit to buy some of my stocks you know because the stock market was doing so well i got to say according to my expert analysis of the situation that totally backfired nowadays i am a doggone hobo who left my family because i felt so guilty call me a coward but when i lost my job as a musician playing in all of them speakeasies i had no way of supporting my family financially i mean what was i supposed to do just stick around and watch my family starve i had to save my own dang skin want to know how it all happened well i will recall the events of that fateful day to the best of my ability let me tell you life before the crash and the depression went pretty smooth for me and my family my wife sally was a stay-at-home mom taking care of our three kids billybob bobbybill and chuck i guess you could say i was raking it in as an alto sax player that played with a group of my buds from grade school as a forty-five year old my wife claimed that the job was just part of my midlife crisis but you know what i was making almost fifty dollars a performance at the local speakeasies in chicago and that was all that really mattered to me i still enjoyed it though it was like living the dream playing with greats like louis armstrong and kid ory and others it seemed like things were going just fine unfortunately life in chicago began getting pretty tough during the latter part of the 1920s my neighborhood had an unemployment rate of nearly forty percent the majority of those out of work being people who had jobs in the factory unfortunately though i too fell in that forty percent our band was out of a job when the local speakeasies did not have enough money to pay for our services then things got really rough for i could not sell all of the shares that i had in the stock market and by the crash in october 1929 i had lost everything my family did not deserve a failure like me so i left them and hopped a freight train which was apparently illegal with a bunch of other hobos all who were going west in hopes to find work there so where am i now well thirty years later i am still broke if you are lucky though you might catch me playing the sax in the streets outside candlestick park if you see me if you could just drop a few coins in my sax case that would be greatly appreciated

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sincerely sam mcsmitherson prohobition was supposed to be a good thing but it has turn for the worse here in this country it is inevitable that many people are bootlegging alcohol in this country and it is up to my agency to stop it however due to the volstead act my fellow agents and i have no chance at stopping these people my main target is al capone who i have suspected for a while now that he is up to no good i have a feeling it was him behind the massacre of a gang in the city of chicago and i feel that he is the leader of the local bootleggers i have looked in every single bar of this city but i find absolutley no evidence that illegal activities occur here i have a feeling that some of my colleagues also have some knowledge of bootlegging but have been paid to keep silent about it there has got to be a spot where they hide all this alcohol but where these gangs are making so much money off this business and it is not helping our situation at all except for the fact that mr capone has just opened a soup kitchen for the poor prohibition has brought out the bad in humanity i am so overwhelmed and i know the brass in washington is not going to do anything about it my main job is to keep my jurisidiction safe and also my family i feel like i am failing at both and i do not see a light at the end of this tunnel federal agent trying to catch bootleggers march 23 1932 dear diary i cant believe what is happening to my life right now i was living the high life as a vanderbilt i took vacations with my family on yachts i could go to any restaurant in nyc and ordered what i pleased my job as writer couldnt have gotten any better now since the 1929 stock market crash i am unemployed and i have lost all of my money i go to the breadline and soup kitchen each day to get food thank goodness prohibition has ended so i can at least drink again i used to live in a luxury apartment now i am down to living in a shantytown with the hobos sometimes i cry about my situation i cant even look myself in the mirror people cant even recognize me as a vanderbilt i try to look for work in any writing organization that i could but there were no jobs i still have many clothes to wear daily unlike other people who just only had the clothes on their back i considered myself well off more than others or maybe i was in denial i tried going to movies whenever i could to keep my mind out of this situation the only thing that kept my spirits up was 1936 olympics since i had no tv i would walk around to places that would broadcast it i look around nyc seeing kids who were sick and single mothers who looked depressed and worried some people were even committing suicide heck i am worried about my own life but i wont let it get the best of me i just hope i could make my money back again and get a job i wonder how my family is doing back in tennessee i cant even afford to call them i should write a letter to them it doesnt cost much and its simple or maybe i should get out of nyc to go to tennessee to go live with them at least they have a house to live in i believe that things could get better i hope i dont catch rickets or another one of these deadly diseases roger stein ny stock exchange trader october 29 1929 december 5 1933 dear diary i remember the days when the family and i were living large in our huge town house in manhattan only a few months ago we ate well dressed to impress and were surrounded by wealth as a stock trader in a time when the stock market was at it s peak life was easy everything was running smoothly until the crash of october 29 1929black tuesday people were in a panic everyone began to sell stocks at an alarming rate we couldn t keep up we assumed that the stock drop was only temporary but the next tuesday after a while things weren t perking up and we began to worry i began to lose money and we eventually lost the house evelyn my wife and i moved our two children into a cramped apartment in brooklyn there were only two rooms a kitchen and a bedroom there wasn t a washroom i brought home less and less money as the months passed work was chaos everyone was frantically trying to keep up with all of the stock sales and dow changes everyone was on their toes i continued to hope for the best i couldn t ever bring home enough money it seemed the kids always asked for second helpings at dinner i always had to tell them no because there wasn t enough the soup kitchens have been very helpful however when we can t feed the kids on our own i blame hoover for the economic situation wasn t the president supposed to be in charge and make sure things like this wouldn t happen i m terrified that with my quickly decreasing salary i may have to move the family to a hooverville the electricity bill is such a burden and is using up our scarce money for food i m afraid it will get to the point where i will have no choice

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dear diary this is my first time writin in yah and i wanted to start out and say that i m 16 and ima girl i go to school and that s more than some can say here ima startin my third year of high school and my lil brothers are startin their first i gots a mother and a father but ma is scared that will change daddy works very hard when he can but sometimes he just doesnt get picked to work that day but the days he does he works the very best he can ma is all ways scared he s gonna leave us our neighbor becky lost her husband he just up and left her with three kids and a baby at home his name was george but we always had to call him mister jones he went to work with daddy the day he left and daddy said that he didnt get picked that day but my daddy did and he just left after that never seen again boy my daddy works hard hardest workin man i know he works all he can but just doesnt seem like enough some times he feels right bad about it but we are more better off than most we go to school and everything and we always have something to eat its different for becky s kids she s had to take up extra jobs sowin and ironin for other people any one that will pay when she dont get picked for her job she been haven trouble keeping their heat and power on my ma feels bad for her so sometime she will let becky and her kids in to get a lil warmer on cold days she figures we have enough heat to share but when it comes to dinner time becky always takes her children back over she s never asked us for food some times ma will send my clothes over there for her to fix and make better and my mama will give her an extra dime or two we have it pretty good i think i dont have a lot of clothes though so i tend to wear the same thing over and over but i got a few necklaces that becky gave to me to give me some style she said that she was two old for them anyway today is the first day of my third year of high school and mama always tells me to wear something nice to make the right impression but i dont got a lot of nice things so i for the past three years iva worn the same dress and stockings but this year i think ima give myself some style with a few different necklaces hmm i can feel the holes in my shoos illa have to walk carefully till i can see if mama can fix them she probable send them to becky and then she ll get a few extra dimes 19 y.o woman in n dakota in 1930 whose family farm is useless b.c of the drought im but a simple young lass by the name of dorothy jean and times have been mighty tough round these parts we used to be mighty fine but all of the sudden all our somethins were worth nothin we used to have lots o fixins for supper and lunch and whatnot but nowadays seems like all wes got is beans im gettin a bit tired of this country livin but i hear its even worse in town with people givin away their kids and such its a darn shame i tell ya but without any water its not gon be much better come august out here my pa says we just dont got the means to make us our ends meet on the brighter side foods cheaper if ya travel yonder into town you can find yourself some five pounds of sugar for twenty five cents down the road theres a jungle thats a rumblin up hobos are getting their dirty feet all over our dry field not that its worth anything anyway itd just be nice to be able to use our own land without them buzzards thievin all our scraps my paps too proud to go on welfare so were just sittin here waitin for life to change i hope it comes soon i cant take much more beans

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i timothy mebble didn t always live like this i didn t always have to beg for food hitch rides on the rails and live among the rats in the hobo jungles before the crash of 29 my life was pretty swell i went to school had warm clothes for the winter and a birthday party every january 17th now i spend my birthday huddling with the other boxcar boys and girls trying to keep warm and knowing the whole time it s impossible how am i supposed to keep warm with no socks on my feet and no hat for my head before the crash everyone knew who the mebbles were our house was envied and our ford was spotless pa was a banker http www.erroluys.com/whatlifewaslikeinthegreatdepression.htm everyone came to my daddy for money nowadays my daddy can t spare a dime he lost his job when the crash of 1929 hit america the bank closed down when everyone rushed to the banks to grab as much of their money as they could my dad was there that day he told me about it before i left he said it was like a group of starved robins fighting for the last seed in the feeder dad came home that day and cried with mom for hours mom said we d be okay she said we d make it and everything would be just fine but we didn t and it wasn t we tried to survive we sold everything we sold our home for a hooverville shack our model t became our food source for a few weeks but dad couldn t find any shifts anywhere with no steady source of cash food ran low http www.allabouthistory.org/life-during-the-great-depression.htm mom started to worry we d go hungry i remember the day i left it was april 5 1933 dad had left to find a shift for the day and mom was busy washing the few raggedy clothes we had my two brothers were still asleep when i slipped out of the house nothing to my name but the clothes on my back i learned quickly that the only way to survive on your own was to run run from the police and railroad guards http www.erroluys.com/whatlifewaslikeinthegreatdepression.htm people who would make me go back home and make my family starve to death i have a lot of time to think most times i think about the good times back when there was enough money for everyone back when we ate steak and roast chicken and turkey heck sometimes i miss school i d do anything to get back to those times i don t care if i have to go to school on weekends http kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade30.html but that s not very realistic a few months ago i wrote to mr roosevelt s wife all the boxcar kids are doing it i asked for clothes a pair of shoes without holes a hat i don t think she got it she wrote back but i don t think she understood she told me to find a camp with the civilian conservation corps i don t know what that is all i want is some clothes i haven t gotten a christmas present in three years shouldn t i get something http newdeal.feri.org/eleanor/index.htm who knows maybe things will get better i have a friend who says if you don t have hope you ll starve i believe him maybe i will go find that conservative corpse thing i guess it s better than a boxcar dear diary 1/13/30 today i found out that mary had bronchitis our neighbor who is a doctor checked on her for free and he said it was bad mary is fighting as good as she can we have not been able to afford much since robert ran out on us after the stock market crashed we are barely scraping by as it is and now mary needs medicine i just don t know what to do elizabeth and john are supposed to start school this year but i can t afford the tuition or new clothes for them i can t believe i was ever married to someone who would just abandon his family when times are tough he took all of our money out of the bank and i haven t heard from him since i have been looking for a job but those are hard to come by nowadays now i am just focusing on keeping the kids warm with whatever i can find last week i took one of our dining room chairs apart so we would have some firewood dear diary 1/17/30 while my sister watched the kids i went looking for a job i got a job as a waitress at a bar serving drinks to the men who haven t quite lost it all maybe with this job i can afford the medicine for mary without this job i would have lost hope for my kids dear diary 1/19/30 now the land lord needs the rent i was just starting to think that everything was going to be okay i just need help i ran into robert brother today he said that robert shot himself because he lost all of the money and had no hope of getting it back i wasn t that upset when jim told me because robert wasn t my husband any more technically he was but he didn t stay true to his vows in sickness and health for better or worse that s what you promise when you say i do journal entry 3-12-29 dear diary life for a homeless man is more than difficult especially during the great depression i used to be a lower class industrial worker in st louis and i was fine with that i made a good enough living to put food on the table and provide for my family but when the great depression started everything started to go downhill when our company could no longer pay us our wages we all lot our jobs much like many other people during the great depression knowing that i could not take care of my family because i was completely broke i freaked out and left my family behind and took off to chicago to try to restart my plan was to become an entrepenuer and make some good money so i could eventually reconnect with my family and have a fresh beginning this did not exactly go how i planned though because i found out that it is nearly impossible to sell anything after the stock market crashed no one has any money to invest into something even if they wanted to so now i am living in an alley between two apartment buildings in chicago with absolutely no money to my name i wish i had even the slightest money so i could go to a speakeasy which is a secretive bar that not many people know about i also am very frightened on the streets because of the crime going on involving al capone and his mob of bad guys i am hoping to ride out this depression and see my family again soon i am hoping if i make it through these hard times i will come out a stronger man a 30 year old mother who steals to feel get 2 starving children who haven t eaten in 4 days

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dear mary times are tough these days i almost got caught stealing today i m so ashamed but am i suppose to do if my children haven t eaten in days why can t we go back to the times before this depression you know when my family could afford food and clothes the time where we could actually live in a real house and not this old apartment that is probably just like living in the street at least we have somewhere to live to sleep and to eat when we have food three women who i used to have tea with on thursdays you remember them right well all their families were thrown into the street i wish we had enough room for them here but i had to steal bread again today just enough for susan and michael to eat i cannot lose my kids to this awful time too the only other thing i m thankful for is that we re not the only family dealing with this it seems like everybody is going through this and it just keeps getting worse the saddest thing i ve seen yet was a little boy crying in the streets when i asked him what was wrong he told me that his father is getting weaker he said the strongest man in his life is now falling to his knees from this depression what do you say to that young child i ve considered having michael go work in a factory to earn some money he s only 10 but a lot of kids his age are working already we need money and i m desperate now president hoover is a fine gentlemen but i don t understand why he can t fix our problem isn t that his job i heard he is making some bread line where they will just give out food that would save some money and save me from getting caught stealing no more stealing but this has not happened yet until then my children and i are still starving and we need money i hate to ask but if you happen to have just a few extra coins i would be so grateful thank you so much for all you ve done mary always appreciative lori hamilton my dearest gabriel i hope they are not working you too terribly hard to try n get that railroad a goin the kids and i miss u so the city is fine for some but not i it doesn have them same feelin s as the farm though the entainment is sumthin to consider aunt barb is of course showing us round to everythin thats anythin the flashy costooms them cityslicks wears is a sight to see i wish u coulduh been here with us to see em as soon as i hear word of that first rain drop ill hightail it back to home to get everythin ready for u se to come home everythin ull be right agin ull see dear jimmy i write this letter to you with much sorrow and confusion i don t know why you have left me but i sure need you to come back home we used to be so happy before the day of the stock market crash we had it all where did all that love and joy go what happened to our once seemingly perfect life together now that you aren t here i am not quite sure what to do with myself i cannot get work and i have no way to pay for all the necessities that come along with living on my own husbandless before this tragedy struck there was not a doubt in my mind that you would stick by my side through thick and thin now that everything that we ever had has been taken from us you have left me alone and in the dark my horrible toothache continues to torture me but i have no way of paying to get a doctor to look at it i feel as if my teeth are slowly rotting out and i am scared i know you must be out there somewhere in the world trying to make back all that we have lost and i am hoping that one day you will come back to me i cannot do this on my own gloria misses you almost as much as i she cries out for you every day how could you leave your daughter like that how could you leave me behind like you did it is hard enough to make it on my own but with three kids it is getting near impossible to survive johnny and bill have no father here to teach them the things that only fathers can they need you here just like this economy needs to be fixed i have heard that this crisis has not just struck us here but that banks are failing all around the country and whole cities are living in poverty as for the family that you have abandoned we no longer can afford good meat shoes for my poor babies feet or to pay the demanding electric company what we have owed them for countless months now i am working like a dog day and night just to put food on the table i let the kids go to the market so that they can get some grab bags of candy and go to the ritz theatre all the other kids are in a similar situation though nobody here has money the children don t understand why you have left them and i do not have the heart to try to explain to them what i cannot even understand myself you are not the only man to have done this to his family though many of the women in our neighborhood are living the same life as i am couples are delaying their marriages and not having children anymore as a result of this horrible drought in the economy at the grocery store last week i heard on the radio that almost one million married women have already reported to have been abandoned by their husbands and are in need of help i hope you realize that you left us with nothing jimmy our christmas this past year consisted of homemade candy popcorn balls and lights on the tree that always went out please don t forget about the ones you have left behind.

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your wife bertha crockett the whole country is out of work hundreds of people out of work the black folk most of all we were the first to get fired cause none of the white business owners want to fire their white workers and when the white folk do get fired they get the first pick of the best jobs and the black folk are left to pick from what is left i ve been doing that for 25 days and i am just so tired of it but there s word that the black folk are starting to claim their place in this country i hear from the boys on the street of legends like ms ella fitzgerald and mr louis satchmo armstrong they give the rest of us hope hope for a better tomorrow at least that is what i tell my children there s hope for us kids there s hope someday your daddy s gonna use that degree of his to buy you a nice house and your momma s gonna have ladies to cook for her and there s gonna be a brand new model t in the driveway just for us it was like that once not quite as fancy but we were well off enough to afford help around the house and new clothes for the kids each school year they smiled so much back then their laughter is rare now probably due to the rickets and they re so hungry they never have enough to eat but they know not to complain we have it better than others they ve had to grow up much too fast we all have i feel like an old man before my time here i am at 38 years of age afraid for my future i suppose it could be harder on the white folk we black folk have alway had to struggle we live with less than most so life isn t really terrible when the going gets tough we band together we share what little we have and scrape by we hear about organizations like the works progress administration that tries to give work to the black folk i got a degree years ago before the depression it was a writing degree i m thinking about interviewing for a writing job anything to put food on the table i hate looking at my family the ghosts of my family and seeing nothing but skin and bones an unemployed african american man on his 25th straight day of getting up trying to find work a single 26 year old woman living and working in chicago 1930 whose parents still live in rural illinois journal today i was evicted from my house because i could not pay my rent i tryed so hard to keep my house by working double shifts but it still wasnt enough on top of being evicted i lost my job and i think it is partically because i am a women my family that lived in rural illinois was forced to move to st louis because they could not afford to stay in the country but i got a job with the international apple shippers assocaition selling their left over fruits i know that this job doesn t make a lot of money but it is better than nothing i am forced to find cardboard and lumber to help build me a shelter the place where all the shelters are is called hoovervilles because we all blame president hoover for the condition that our country is in but yesterday was a good day because the soup was hot and good and i was even allowed to get seconds i hear about how teachers are owed eight and a half months back pay our country is in terrible shape but i think that we will move forward and notbackwards dear diary ooh how i love you you are the one person i can take all my problems to and you take me for who i am first i would like to write a prayer thanking god for saving my life the other day when i had a run in with the law father thank you for delivering me from the one who wishes to take me okay now to the real issues i am so glad with how last week turned out i earned 4 thousand dollars just doing some stuff for my uncle al he is such a nice guy for some reason a lot of people are afraid of him or something but not i i love my uncle my uncle just had his car impounded by some stupid federal agents damn them they took the car that i liked the most even the windows were bullet proof eeeh it will be so annoying to try and find a replacement for it i know he wont feel safe without the extra protection my wife has left me now that she is sertain that i am in the gang she knows i wouldn t have the money i do if i weren t in these times i feel broken hearted by her hopefully she will take me back some day any who i should probably go love you diary i ll see you tomorrow dear diary today is june 17 1932 the other wwi veterans and i have decided to join the bonus expeditionary force others cal it the bonus army we re supposed to be getting paid by the government for serving our country in 1945 all of us though are getting tired of the depression and want our money now so today soon i will be marching with the others toward the capitol and demanding money me and 15,000 other men storming towards the capitol it ll be a crazy sight our leader walter water told us we re here for the duration and we re not going to starve we re going to keep ourselves a simon-pure veteran s organization if the bonus is paid it will relieve to a large extent the deplorable economic condition we will be marching to get what we deserve sincerely barry buttons dear diary today is july 18 1932 the government defeated our bill with a vote of 62 to 18 we were all ordered to leave the capitol and the u.s army made sure we were off government grounds and it was called the death march we all we very upset that we didn t get the money we deserve now although life in this depression is getting harder and harder with all the unemployment we re scraping by to survive i m getting small jobs here and there to provide for suzie and little rosey and may the heating although did turn off today due to bills being unpaid but we ll have back on hopefully in no time soon though this depression will be over and the u.s will be back to normal sincerely barry buttons

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times are tough here in the tennessee hills luckily i have a steady income i m a moonshiner and my product is always in demand so i always have money coming in but of course there is a downside the police and the feds are always watching and looking for me i try to help out my family members the best i can but it s hard to keep everyone afloat my momma is real sick and can t work at all so i help her out the most my pop died years ago and he taught me everything i know about moonshinin boy am i thankful for him if i wasn t moonshinin i d be out in the cold prohibition made my job harder but as people sank farther and farther into the depression they bought more and more liquor this was good for me of course but sad for everyone else i thank the lord almighty everyday for all i ve been blessed with but i don t know how much longer we can keep on like this person joseph p kennedy 1930s hi i am joseph kennedy and in the 1930 s i started to get into politics it is quite the scary business and its also kind of complicated this was a very difficult time for our country for we were going through the great deppression my family and i were not too bad off though because i was quick on my feet and built a huge liquor business while prohibition was going on in anticipation of the act being repealed and when it was repealed i made millions in selling my liquor and stock there are so many people out there who are just not as smart as me i feel bad for them but sometimes when you snooze you lose back to politics now i was one of the first men to hold a large fundraiser for fdr who was going to save our country i then became the first chairman of the securities and exchange comission and then the american ambassador to england in this position i did something that i kind of regret basically i talked some trash about how england s chances of winning ww2 were not very good to say the least a lot of people disliked me for this but the fact was without the united states help england would have gotten dominated in the war my actions in this matter is what really alienated me from fdr i decided to keep at the politics game though and helped my 3 sons john robert and edward with their political careers some people say i passed on my ideas of so called greed to them too but i think of it as more of a drive for success i mean hey was your son the president of the united states the greatest country in the world didnt think so america january 18 1929 dear diary times are bustling since this is my first diary entry i need to clarify a few things before i start first of all my name is miss evelyn catherine vanderbilt and i work here at the new york post i just had my twenty-second birthday last week and the people here at the office threw me a party they are so nice i do not need to work here because i have enough money from my family but i enjoy working here and challenging the men because i am a woman who is higher up on the ladder than them and it gives my satisfaction this decade is one of the best my grandmother tells me we dine every night in luxury and warmth from the multiple fireplaces throughout the townhouse at fifth avenue in downtown new york city it is a great time i shop when i am not working at the post or i visit the rest of my family for the weekend in the countryside mansion it is not really the country though but just a short ride in one of our rolls royce being wealthy is amazing i do not know what i could do without it december 12 1932 dear diary i have not written in a while the stock market crashed a few years back and i lost my job less than a year later many people ­ even with my status ­ have been laid off according to my mother whom wrote me after she heard the house of vanderbilt quickly fell within a few years because all of our money was involved in the stock market we had to sell many of our luxury items like our cars and yachts i do not have a ton of money available but i did keep some on the side not in a bank my name is a failure i am not along the elite anymore we fell down this will be my last diary because i do not have any more paper if you are reading this and this atrocious time has passed i do hope you know what has happened to my beloved family name i hope and pray that my family s name can be redeemed even if our belongings and houses have been sold and demolished into dirt 40 year old once employed father husband in line for direct relief 1933

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by the time the stock market crashed i was doing great i had everything that i needed my wife alice and my two boys john and benjamin we didn t live a very luxurious life because after all i was only a laborer but we lived well and my boys looked up to me it was the american dream until the panic of black monday once the market crashed so did business it was hard enough to pick up a shift or two every week and as time went by work became less available now i can t find work at all i have used up nearly all of my savings that i had left after our local bank closed due to regulation problems i am trying to scrape up as much money as i can i can t fail my boys they need a warm house and ample food to eat also i need to keep myself together for my alice she is worried we won t make it i am in line for direct relief funds but i don t know how much longer i can wait the house is empty our power was shut off last week and our mortgage is weeks overdue i feel as though i am at a bottomless pit my father told me the federal relief will help me greatly but i am not quite as optimistic as him i feel ashamed that i am forced to resort to government aid what has happened when hoover came into office as a progressive i thought the country would progress even more after the roaring twenties but it seems as though there is no more hope for progress i pray that these government funds will help me get back up on my feet i am about to break but i must stay strong for my family they need me this depression can only last for so long right role an okie who left his wife and 4 children to find a job life is just getting rougher as we go i have finally run out of options i had to leave my family i feel as though it is the worst thing i could have done but there are no jobs left in oklahoma there was no way i could support my family if i stayed so i left at least i m not the only one though one out of every four people don t have a job a lot of people can t handle the stress the suicide rate went up to 57 even the great bear of wall street cosabee livermore committed suicide from the stock market crash i can t do that to my family they need me now more than ever i can t leave them hopeless i have four children and a wife that is a lot of mouths to feed and bodies to clothe maybe i ll go west to california and i will find a man who needs help managing his farm or maybe i ll go to the east coast and get a job at a shipping dock once i get some money i will have to figure out how to get it back home so that i can keep the heat and power on at home it is november and it is starting to get chilly it would be a terrible time to have our heat shut off staying alive is already hard enough as i travel alone i miss my family more and more i promised my children that we would never send them away to live with someone else my poor suzie is 9 and wishes that she could attend school to have something to do during the day but schools have closed down and my three boys harry charlie and mark they wanted to do anything to help so that i wouldn t have to leave but it was unavoidable we were doing well before the crash all the kids were in school my wife mary and i didn t have any tension between us we had enough money to pay the bills feed everyone clothe everyone mary and i could get a beer every once in awhile and we were even saving up for a car and the stocks were doing well i invested a lot into them hoping to become rich all the money we were saving was supposedly kept safe in the capitol safe bank but when i went to withdrawal it all when the crash started to hit it was all gone i lost everything and now my family is suffering and i can hardly bare it but someday we will be together again and we will have the money to buy our family a car someday we will pull out of this and i will be very successful and i will have beaten the odds i won t have committed suicide i won t have abandoned my family and i won t be hopeless anymore i m tired of feeling hopeless i want my family to not be afraid i don t want them to have to fear how long they will wait for their next meal or if the heat will still be on tomorrow 9 woman with 3 kids-husband left-living in car in cali-1936 stacy white january 9th 1936 dear diary things have been tough ever since john left me and the kids john left us in seach of finding a better lifestyle i overheard him talkin bout some federal job or somethin no matter before this crisis we were happy john owned a small farm that brought in enough money for us to get by and to feed him me bill sue and little tawny it was a modest but decent life i wouldn t have asked for more i guess it wasn t enough for john he told me nothing would tear us apart but i guess the sound of a job opportunity and less to provide for was much stronger or maybe it was the fact that owning a farm these days was not as good as it used to be life has been tough and all but i dont know why he would leave no matter i have three children to take care of i try to find little things to do that make some money but its hard to find anythin these days bill and sue go to work in a factory to try to help too they get underpaid but it is better than nothing i mostly stay with little tawny bringing her with me wherever i find a job we recently started living in the car sometimes trading some of our belongings for a small something to eat it is january and it gets a little chilly at night we cant leave the car on for we have no money to pay for fuel the fuel is precious and is used only when need be as for food it is even more sacred when we stumble across a soup kitchen or bread line we always take our share bill sometimes takes more than he should and before you know it we are kicked out again i heard about some social security thing and people were sayin it would give you some money but you have to be old maybe ill get it in a few years i sure do hope so it pains me to see my children so hungry maybe things will turn around soon but either way i got my kids to look after i hate livin like this i want to provide for them more than i am now well i guess thats all for now i ll write again soon

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hi my name is josh and i have had to resort to the last thing i thought i d ever have to do my life was doing great i had a nice big happy family and we lived in the fairly descent neighborhood of new york city i had a great job working at the local construction company making pretty descent money and had quit a bit of money saved up in the bank because i was planning on taking my wife and my two kids on a nice trip to see new land life was going great for me until i lost everything i had ever had at a blink of an eye when the stock market crashed the bank lost all of my money and things went down hill fast from there all i had left was the last paycheck of mine and the future paychecks just enough to get by for now but as the economy dropped my company had to start laying off so week by week more people got laid off and eventually i had to go i tried to get new jobs but as it was there was several others standing around in the streets wanting a job i felt terrible now that i couldn t feed my family so i had to leave them in search of new wealth though i ended up finding a little shantytown in new york city and i was able to live cheaply there and allowed for me to gain some money life was terrible here cause there was no electricity or running water here since i used to be in the construction business i made a pretty nice home for myself and it was even so good that i started selling them for thirty-five dollars a piece to newcomers i begged for all the food i could get so that way my money wasn t being blown all the time as time went on all i had for entertainment was a radio in the center of the shantytown that we would all gather around to listen to the yankees play baseball as i continued to gain more money i would send back to my family that was living with my wife s parents in the upper new york state finally after some years the market finally began to rise again and i was able to get another good job and my family got to live with me as we slowly made our way back to a descent life but it still has never reached the potential we had at the beginning january 18 1938 man i tell you what back in 1929 i had it all load of money a great family and a swell job life could not have been any better for me i was sitting high and mighty on a cloud of success i was eating caviar and boiled goose with my wonderful wife and three kids around one of the largest dinner tables i had ever seen in my mansion i remember sitting by the fireplace and reading my kids stories about fantasy stories and adventures waiting for all of them to fall asleep so i could carry them to their beds then all of that changed in an instant in october of 1929 everything i had worked for had vanished i had my entire fortune riding on stocks in america i had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested into these stocks and they all disappeared all of a sudden my self-made fortune was being removed from existence i was forced to sell my house because i couldn t make the payments we had to move into a crummy apartment in east ny because we could not afford the good food we used to eat we were forced to go to a bread line everyday to get our meals a year or two down the road i remember myself still standing on the floor pen and paper in hand buying measly stocks for one or two per share hoping they would soon quadruple in the future my wife always said it was foolish to believe that such things could happen but what do we have to lose we re already poor might as well try for something i said then two years later in 1933 my wife decided she had had enough of living in the slums of ny she left me leaving me and my three kids to wonder what will become of us i remember telling each child that i would never get rid of them and send them away to their relatives in iowa but as fate would have it i couldn t keep my promise with two of my kids growing very sick from influenza i had no choice but to send them to my relatives it was either send them away and keep them alive or keep them here with me and risk losing one of them now the year is 1938 and things haven t changed much i still eat from the bread line everyday and can only find work at the factories that need extra labor i can t make enough to get my kids back and i m not sure they even want to come back after what i did to them life is hard and it is showing no signs of going back to the way it used to be

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role chester lockhart date march 22 1936 life has become rather dreary i find myself reminiscing upon my days at college and wish for them back it was my duty as the oldest of six to leave school and come back to help support my family still i miss those days of carefree learning once i can home i went straight to working i am employed at one of the local factories working all day for what used to be considered sub-standard wages now though i am quite thankful for the money and job everyone once in awhile some of my friends and i are able head to a movie or get together for some parlor games my father after losing his job in 1930 has had some trouble finding a steady new job he mainly has been showing up anywhere he can for any hiring that is happening but the jobs never last long it had gotten so bad once that even with my father s and my wages combined we were not been able to earn enough to buy food for the whole family we ended up having to go to the government handout to receive food which consisted of powdered milk dried beans and potatoes it was terrible and i felt ashamed to have to line up for the hoover stew my father and i together we not able to make ends meet and support the family wages annually used to be around $2,300 and now they re plummeting to $1,500 how are we going to survive caring for eight with that little somehow we will find a way my parents and i have so far i just cannot stand to see my younger brothers and sisters go hungry or have to be pulled out of school if the prices for it go up any more i ve seen other children so hungry that they chew on their hands and it would kill me for that to ever be my siblings to try to distract them from all that is happening since the stock market crash we have been going to the movies in a hoover wagon and playing board games i try to maintain a happy disposition around them to keep them from worrying its tough especially when my parents are constantly seeing if we will make ends meet with worry-lines now becoming etched in their foreheads it makes me nervous several of my friend s fathers have just abandoned the family because of the stress when my parents become very distressed by all of this i have taken to playing monopoly a new board game with my younger siblings to keep them occupied since the crash of the stock market our lives have changed so much it s depressing to thing about all of our family savings were in a bank that had invested in some stocks then all of the sudden it was gone everything we had worked for i am just hoping we will be able to get through all of this as a family success after so many years i am able to forget my racial inferiority too long have people tormented me with by claiming that we were not americans which one of them did not come from overseas anyway either way i have shown them up with my new resources my sons will be able to go even farther than ever many of my counterparts consider me lucky i was one of the very few who heard the rumblings of the economy falling to pieces and was able to get out that day on october 24 1929 that fateful day whatever it was it was fateful my fate was to rise and theirs to fall but i do pity those apple-sellers whatever they deserved for their discrimination it was not this some of them are scraping together livings that keep them in apartments or small houses some of them are trying to shelter their families on the street a very few have died and even fewer the bastards the cowardly wretched bastards have run out on their wives and children when ivan ran out on his family i all but went to hunt him down his family lives in my house now i could not help but show pity no one no one deserves to be betrayed like that especially not helen george and little allison it is amazing what people are coming to today those who would never take help from their closest friends are now running in droves to beg from their country-men and government i hear that out west farms are going under there is an incredible drought in other places farmers are paid to not harvest their crops to motivate selling prices what is this world coming to josh johnson is a thirteen year old boy who decides to run away so his mother would have one less mouth to feed in 1933 feb 12 1933 dear diary im sorry i havent written to you in quite a while things have been pretty hectic around here its amazing how fast my life has changed last time i wrote to you i was eight now i am thirteen the day of my last entry was the last day of my familys happiness i remember the day after my entry like it was yesterday dad went off to work he worked eight hours a day for the ford company mama stayed home with me and my little brothers john jack and jake she was making chicken pot pie for dinner when all of a sudden we heard dad come in the front door we rushed to him and welcomed him home with hugs and kisses like we always did however that day was different dad ignored us and went straight to the kitchen with mama and closed the door behind him later i learned of the stock market crash the bank lost all our money on top of that the ford company had to start laying off workers dad was one of the unlucky ones we were broke of course my brothers and i didnt understand the situation when my parents announced we were moving i thought of it as an adventure i recall seeing our new home for the first time the roof was cracked the door didnt close all the way and my dad had to spend a whole day trying to fix the heater i laid awake most nights and listened to my parents call president hoovers efforts too little too late today we are still living in this old home dad has to go out every day and attempt to find work sometimes he is able to find work down at the docks he has yet to find a stable job with the little money he earns we eat fried bologna nearly every night last night mama didnt have enough food for all of us so she forfeited her dinner for me i felt awful i wanted to cry i knew i couldnt let her do that for me again all our neighbors are sending their children away to live with their more stable relatives i know my parents have no where to send us i really think that the best thing i can do for my family is run away then my mama would be able to eat every meal and dad wont have to be so stressed about having to provide for four kids i know i can hop a train on the edge of town i have seen other people do it and its not that difficult hardly anyone gets caught especially the ones who hop on at night i dont care where the train i hop is going i just know my family will be better off

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