Great Depression and the Lessons

Lessons From the Great Depression The great depression in the U.S.A. was occasioned by the crash in the stock market in October 1929 and led to great panic at the wall street, wiping out millions of investors, the consumer spending drastically dropped and hence drop in investments hence by 1933 around 15 million Americans were rendered jobless and close to half the banks in the nation closed.

More citizens withdrew their money from the banks with fears that the banks could go under despite the repeated assurance by President Roosevelt that it was safe to keep their money in the banks than to keep it under the mattress. It is a period that left people with no options to satisfy their basic needs, yet on the flip side, it presented people with positive lessons and skills to adopt in order to survive through the tough economic times (Browder, Laura , 1998).

These tough economic options drove majority of the Americas to learn how to share the few resources and supplies that were among them, a fact that bordered on communism amidst a capitalistic economy. These depression brought hard times when there was little in terms of trade that the Americans could constructively engage in and this idleness was compounded by the loss of jobs and the bad weather for agriculture that came along the economic depression.

This situation left many Americans with only one option, that of writing in order to express their feelings and frustrations at the depression. At this time, the writers who inclined towards the leftist ideologies were more appealing to many Americans due to the general dissatisfaction with the way the depression was being managed and the measures that the government had put in place in addressing the dire situation of many Americans as noted by Dawahare, Anthony, (1997) With such a big challenge before the U.S.A.

government at that time, it required a myriad of tactics to tackle the greatest economic depression that the U.S.A. had ever experienced since independence. According to Himmelberg & Robert F. (2001) , the new deal was one of the greatest strategies that were used in order to combat the economic challenge at that time. It involved a lot of economic reforms which included the reduction of the salary of those who worked in government departments, as well as the army by 15% and the reduction of government spending by 25%.

This was a lesson that the luxurious lifestyle that was enjoyed by the government employees was unnecessary and a burden to the economy, this reshaped the remuneration procedures for the government employees since then. He great depression was also seen as a period of artistic reincarnation. This period saw some art groups resort to using art as a means of diverting the attention of the people away from the pangs of the economic pinch they were experiencing.

One such group recognized to have significantly made positive the great depression was "The players." This was an all male group focused on production of comedies and widely used humor to numb the feelings of Americans and encouraged the faint hearted towards the hard times. Lavering & Marijean, (2007) , indicate that humor from such productions helped many not to be negatively influenced by the terrible happenings of the time.

As Lincolns Uys & Errol, (2003) indicate, the depression did not choose on the gender nor did it get restricted by the age gap hence the young people equally felt the pressure of the economic hard times and were brought onboard in solving the depression.

They were under immense pressure to help the family in the provision of the daily meals as they felt it was a shame to be a burden to others and they also felt that their families were under immense suffering in an attempt to provide for them and they always wanted to do something to help the family in the eking of life during this period. It changed the perspective held towards work and the younger generation since then had to contribute towards building of the economy.

The effects of the depression were far reaching, however, there was a.