By 1934 there were 25,000 fewer teachers than in 1930, and by 1935, 40 percent of the 10 million high school aged youth in America were out of school. Approximately five thousand schools had closed altogether, affecting 175,000 children. Millions of children were affected by shortened school years in the 1933–34 school year. The Great Depression brought not only high unemployment rates but closed many schools as well. By 1933 12 million people were out of work as the unemployment rate hit 25 percent. Issue Summary A Flood of TransientsĪs the Great Depression worsened through 19, private charities and local relief agencies that had assisted transients in the past several decades were overwhelmed.
Just as the Great Depression lingered through the 1930s, so did the large number of individuals riding the rails across America. Therefore that assistance would only last temporarily before they were once again out looking for work in private business. But given the size of the transient population-estimated at two to three million in early 1933, including 250,000 riding the rails-most any effort would ultimately only reach a small percentage. Each of these programs offered various forms of relief and care services, including jobs on public projects, a network of transient shelters, and education programs. New Deal programs that addressed the transient included the Federal Transient Service, the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the National Youth Administration (NYA) within the WPA. Growth in the nation's wandering or transient population. The New Deal made special efforts to provide support for the sudden Along the way they met adventure, hunger, hardship, hostile security guards and law authorities, danger, boredom, and despair, as well as many other people doing the same.īetween 19 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (served 1933–1945) introduced the New Deal, a large array of social and economic programs designed to combat the Great Depression and provide relief to those most affected.
No longer a world of middle aged men, the rails brigade now included thousands of youths, some as young as 13 years of age, and increasing numbers of women and minorities. Most were in search of better job opportunities elsewhere so they could send money back home, while others were looking for adventure. Seeing no hope for employment where they lived, many of all ages decided to take to the rails jumping on freight and passenger trains without paying and riding them to various parts of the nation. Three million of those jobless were also young, between 16 and 25 years of age. workforce and hundreds of thousands of children were out of school. By early 1933 over 12 million workers were unemployed amounting to almost 25 percent of the U.S. Schools reduced the length of school years in many areas or closed altogether. Many lost their jobs or saw their incomes reduced. Want to listen to an audio-only version of this lecture? Listen now on Soundcloud.The crash of the stock market in October 1929 followed by the Great Depression brought considerable economic suffering to millions of Americans. The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. Scott Reynolds Nelson teaches history at the College of William & Mary. This lecture complemented the VMHC exhibition Organized Labor in Virginia. It is also the story of work songs, songs that not only turned Henry into a folk hero but also, in reminding workers to slow down or die, were a tool of resistance and protest. In his book, Nelson pieces together the biography of the real John Henry. There, at the Lewis Tunnel, Henry and other prisoners worked alongside steam-powered drills. Folklorists have long thought John Henry to be mythical, but historian Scott Nelson has discovered that he was a real person-a nineteen-year-old from New Jersey who was convicted of theft in a Virginia court in 1866, sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary, and put to work building the C&O Railroad. According to the ballad that made him famous, John Henry did battle with a steam-powered drill, beat the machine, and died.
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