THE MAKING OF A NATION 177 - Great Depression

THE MAKING OF A NATION - January 24, 2002: Great Depression

By David Jarmul
VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.

(THEME)

The stock market crash of Nineteen-Twenty-Nine marked the beginning of the worst economic crisis¹ in
American history. Millions of people lost their jobs. Thousands lost their homes. During the next several years, a
large part of the richest nation on Earth learned what it meant to be poor.

Hard times found their way into every area, group, and job. Workers struggled as factories closed. Farmers, hit
with falling prices and natural disasters, were forced to give up their farms. Businessmen lost their stores and
sometimes their homes. It was a severe economic crisis -- a depression.

VOICE TWO:

Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, one of America's greatest writers, described the depression this way: "It was
a terrible, troubled time. I can't think of any ten years in history when so much happened in so many directions.
Violent change took place. Our country was shaped, our lives changed, our government rebuilt." Said John
Steinbeck: "When the stock market fell, the factories, mines, and steelworks closed. And then no one could buy
anything. Not even food."

VOICE ONE:

An unemployed² auto³ worker in the manufacturing city of Detroit described the situation
this way:

"Before daylight, we were on the way to the Chevrolet factory to look for work. The
police were already there, waving us away

from the office. They were saying, 'Nothing doing! No jobs! No jobs!' So now we were
walking slowly through the falling snow to the employment office for the Dodge⁴ auto
company. A big, well-fed man in a heavy overcoat stood at the door. 'No! No!' he said.
There was no work."

Depression refugees⁵
from Oklahoma, now in
California
(Photo - Dorothea
Lange/Library of Congress)
One Texas farmer lost his farm and moved his family to California to look for work.
"We can't send the children to school," he said, "because they have no clothes."

VOICE TWO:

The economic crisis began with the stock market crash in October, Nineteen-Twenty-Nine. For the first year, the
economy fell very slowly. But it dropped sharply⁶ in Nineteen-Thirty-One and Nineteen-Thirty-Two. And by the
end of Nineteen-Thirty-Two, the economy collapsed⁷ almost completely.

The gross⁸ national product is the total of all goods and services produced. During the three
years following the stock market crash, the American gross national product dropped by
almost half. The wealth of the average American dropped to a level lower than it had been
twenty-five years earlier.

All the gains of the Nineteen-Twenties were washed away.

Unemployment rose sharply. The number of workers looking for a job jumped from three
percent to more than twenty -five percent in just four years. One of every three or four workers

Selling apples
near the U.S.

was looking for a job in Nineteen-Thirty-Two. Capitol, 1930

VOICE ONE:

Those employment numbers did not include farmers. The men and women who grew the nation's food suffered
terribly during the Great Depression.

This was especially true in the southwestern states of Oklahoma and Texas. Farmers there were losing money
because of falling prices for their crops. Then natural disaster struck. Year after year, little or no rain fell. The
ground dried up. And then the wind blew away the earth in huge clouds of dust.

"All that dust made some of the farmers leave," one Oklahoma farmer remembered later. "But my family stayed.
We fought to live. Despite all the dust and the wind, we were planting seeds. But we got no crops. We had five
crop failures in five years."

VOICE TWO:

Falling production. Rising unemployment. Men begging in the streets. But there was more to the Great
Depression. At that time, the federal government did not guarantee the money that people put in banks. When
people could not repay⁹ loans, banks began to close.

In Nineteen-Twenty-Nine, six-hundred fifty-nine banks with total holdings of two-hundred-million dollars went
out of business. The next year, two times that number failed. And the year after that, almost twice that number of
banks went out of business. Millions of persons lost all their savings¹⁰. They had no money left.

VOICE ONE:

The depression caused serious public health problems. Hospitals across the country were filled with sick people
whose main illness was a lack of food. The health department in New York City found that one of every five of
the city's children did not get enough food. Ninety-nine percent of the children attending a school in a coal-
mining area reportedly were underweight. In some places, people died of hunger.

The quality of housing also fell. Families were forced to crowd into small houses or apartments to share costs.
Many people had no homes at all. They slept on public streets, buses, or trains. One official in Chicago reported
in Nineteen-Thirty-One that several hundred women without homes were sleeping in city parks. In a number of
cities, people without homes built their houses from whatever materials they could find. They used empty boxes
or pieces of metal to build shelters in open areas.

VOICE TWO:

People called these areas of little temporary houses "Hoovervilles." They blamed President Hoover for their
situation. So, too, did the men forced to sleep in public parks at night. They covered themselves with pieces of
paper. And they called the paper "Hoover blankets." People without money in their pants called their empty
pockets "Hoover flags."

People blamed President Hoover because they thought he was not doing enough to help them. Hoover did take
several actions to try to improve the economy. But he resisted proposals for the federal government to provide aid
in a major way. And he refused to let the government spend more money than it earned.

Hoover told the nation: "Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative¹¹ action or executive¹² decision."

Many conservative¹³ Americans agreed with him. But not the millions of Americans who were hungry and tired of
looking for a job. They accused Hoover of not caring about the common citizen. One congressman¹⁴ from Alabama
said: "In the White House, we have a man more interested in the money of the rich than in the stomachs of the
poor."

VOICE ONE:

On and on the Great Depression continued. Of course, some Americans were lucky. They kept their jobs. And
they had enough money to enjoy the lower prices of most goods. Many people shared their earnings¹⁵ with friends


in need.

"We joined our money when we had some," remembered John Steinbeck. "It seems strange to say that we rarely
had a job," Steinbeck wrote years later. "There just weren't any jobs. But we didn't have to steal much. Farmers
and fruit growers in the nearby countryside could not sell their crops. They gave us all the food and fruit we
could carry home.

VOICE TWO:

Other Americans reacted to the crisis by leading protests against the economic policies of the Hoover
administration. In Nineteen-Thirty-Two, a large group of former soldiers gathered in Washington to demand
help. More than eight-thousand of them built the nation's largest Hooverville near the White House. Federal
troops finally removed them by force and burned their little shelters.

Next week, we will look at how the Great Depression of the Nineteen-Thirties affected¹⁶ other countries.

(THEME)

VOICE ONE:

You have been listening to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English by the Voice of
America. Your narrators have been Harry¹⁷ Monroe and Warren Scheer. Our program was written by David
Jarmul. The Voice of America invites you to listen again next week to THE MAKING OF A NATION.

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1 crisis   

n.危机，危急关头，决定性时刻，关键阶段

参考例句：

• He had proved that he could be relied on in a crisis.他已表明，在紧要关头他是可以信赖的。
• The topic today centers about the crisis in the Middle East.今天课题的中心是中东危机。

2 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

3 auto   

n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车

参考例句：

• Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
• The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。

4 dodge   

v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计

参考例句：

• A dodge behind a tree kept her from being run over.她向树后一闪，才没被车从身上辗过。
• The dodge was coopered by the police.诡计被警察粉碎了。

5 refugees   

n.避难者，难民( refugee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The UN has begun making airdrops of food to refugees. 联合国已开始向难民空投食物。
• They claimed they were political refugees and not economic migrants. 他们宣称自己是政治难民，不是经济移民。

6 sharply   

adj.锐利地，急速；adv.严厉地，鲜明地

参考例句：

• The plane dived sharply and rose again.飞机猛然俯冲而后又拉了起来。
• Demand for personal computers has risen sharply.对个人电脑的需求急剧增长。

7 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

8 gross   

adj.全部的，粗俗的，肥胖的；vt.获得...总收入

参考例句：

• The gross weight of the box of chocolates is 500 grams.那盒巧克力的全部重量是500克。
• I consider this a gross oversight on your part.我把这件事看作是你的一大疏忽。

9 repay   

v.偿还，报答，还钱给

参考例句：

• I feel honor bound to repay the money I borrowed.我觉得有责任归还我借的钱。
• I must repay her for her kindness.我必须报答她的恩惠。

10 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

11 legislative   

n.立法机构，立法权；adj.立法的，有立法权的

参考例句：

• Congress is the legislative branch of the U.S. government.国会是美国政府的立法部门。
• Today's hearing was just the first step in the legislative process.今天的听证会只是展开立法程序的第一步。

12 executive   

adj.执行的，行政的；n.执行者，行政官，经理

参考例句：

• A good executive usually gets on well with people.一个好的高级管理人员通常与人们相处得很好。
• He is a man of great executive ability.他是个具有极高管理能力的人。

13 conservative   

adj.保守的，守旧的；n.保守的人，保守派

参考例句：

• He is a conservative member of the church.他是一个守旧教会教友。
• The young man is very conservative.这个年轻人很守旧。

14 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

15 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。

16 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

17 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。