Friday, December 03, 2010

Depression Then and Now

Homeless Americans
Hoovervilles. (Seattle ca. 1930)
Tent Cities in America (Sacramento, 2009). The difference between then and now is that today police forcibly disperse such gatherings of the homeless. They give a bad civic image.
Poverty
Then - "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.... The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." ~ Franklin Roosevelt, 1937
Nipomo, California 1936. One of a famous series of photos by Dorothea Lange.
Now - One in seven Americans lived in poverty last year. Ten poverty statistics not to ignore. Children in a Fort Worth homeless shelter, 2009.
Unemployment
The American Legion Employment Bureau, Los Angeles ca. 1930.
Indiana hires armed security guards for 36 unemployment offices around the state. Grand Rapids, Michigan unemployment office, 2009.
Racism in America
Leland, Mississippi, 1937
Anti-mosque protest, New York City 2010
The current economic depression began in the year 2000 when the dotcom bubble burst. Each subsequent event - 9/11, the housing bubble of 2006, the financial crisis of 2007, the 2008 stock market panic, the employment crash, the ongoing banking crisis - have been a series of dominoes falling. Historians will look back at this as a single event encompassing multiple decades.

References
A photo essay on the Great Depression
The Great Depression, Causes and Cures
What a Modern Depression Looks Like

1 comment:

Nobel Prize Winners said...

At least now a days there are some organizations and government projects that helps the homeless individuals to have a shelter to have a temporary shelter at night. Usually these shelters provide a meal and clothes.