American History: Fear Takes Hold During the Great Depressio

BARBARA KLEIN: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English. I’m Barbara Klein.
STEVE EMBER: And I’m Steve Ember.
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.
Workers lost their jobs as factories closed. Business owners lost their stores and sometimes their homes. Farmers lost their land as they struggled with falling prices and natural disasters.
And Americans were not the only ones who suffered. This week in our series, we talk about the economic crisis that became the Great Depression.
(MUSIC “Creole Love Call”/Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra)
The son of a Depression-era refugee² from Oklahoma who moved to California
BARBARA KLEIN: One of America's greatest writers, John Steinbeck, 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."
Steinbeck, winner of the nineteen sixty-two Nobel Prize in literature, said: "When the market fell, the factories, mines, and steelworks closed and then no one could buy anything, not even food."
STEVE EMBER: An unemployed³ auto⁴ worker in Detroit, Michigan, 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 Dodge⁵ auto company. A big, well-fed man in a heavy overcoat stood at the door. 'No! No!' he said. There was no work."
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."
(MUSIC “Gloomy Sunday”/Billie Holiday)
BARBARA KLEIN: 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.
During the three years following the stock market crash, the value of goods and services produced in America fell 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 was looking for a job in nineteen thirty-two.
STEVE EMBER: 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 two states, 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."
(MUSIC “Mean Low Blues”/Blues Birdhead)
BARBARA KLEIN: 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 repay⁸ 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 savings⁹. They had no money left.
STEVE EMBER: 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 of the country reportedly were underweight. In some places, people died of hunger.
(MUSIC “Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)”/Blind Willie Johnson)
STEVE EMBER: 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.
BARBARA KLEIN: 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 legislative¹⁰ action or executive¹¹ decision."
Many conservative¹² 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 common citizens.
One congressman¹³ 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."
(MUSIC “I Surrender, Dear”/Red Norvo and His Swing Septet)
STEVE EMBER: 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 earnings¹⁴ with friends in need.
Years later, John Steinbeck wrote: "It seems odd now to say that we rarely had a job. There just weren't any jobs." But, he continued, "Given the sea and the gardens, we did pretty well with a minimum of theft. We didn't have to steal much." Farmers could not sell their crops, he explained, so they gave away all the fruit and vegetables that people could carry home.
BARBARA KLEIN: 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 shelters.
(MUSIC “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime”/Rudy Vallee)
Next week, we will look at how the Great Depression of the nineteen thirties affected¹⁵ other countries.
(MUSIC)
STEVE EMBER: This program was written by David Jarmul. I’m Steve Ember.
BARBARA KLEIN: And I’m Barbara Klein. You can find our series online with pictures, transcripts¹⁶, MP3s, and podcasts at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.
___
This is program #177

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 refugee   

n.难民，流亡者

参考例句：

• The refugee was condemned to a life of wandering.这个难民注定要过流浪的生活。
• The refugee is suffering for want of food and medical supplies.难民苦于缺少食物和医药用品。

3 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。

4 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。

5 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。

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 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。

9 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。

10 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。

11 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。

12 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。

13 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。

14 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%。

15 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。

16 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句