My Day in the Great Depression

By: AngelaLevesque

The Basics

• I made $750 per year• I was a market owner• I had a husband and a daughter

Basics continued

• Rent for our house was $12 per month

• The phone cost $3 per month, so we stopped that service

• Electricity was $1 per month, so we kept that

• Having the doctor come to the house was $3

Can I support my family?

• I can’t see how it would be possible for me to support my family on my income

• I don’t even have enough money for food• My daughter goes and picks fruit off trees

and off of the street• She also shines people’s shoes for a little extra money

Family support continued

• My husband is unemployed• My husband and I fight so much that it is

hard to live together• Divorce is too expensive with all of the

legal fees, so we will probably just stay together

• http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/snprelief1.htm

Food

• I had $14.40 as a budget for the week• I had enough money to buy plenty of

bread and potatoes• The government gave out some Cheese, but the lines were very long

Food continued

• There was very rarely meat• My husband would sometimes hunt for

meat• Pasta was cheap too, so we ate that a lot• We did eat carrots because they were one

of the cheaper vegetables• http://www.rinfret.com/depression.html• I don’t know if I could live like this everyday

Shopping

• Shopping around the town in the classroom was not very fun because I did not have enough money to buy anything that I didn’t absolutely need

• No extras!• I felt very poor and kind of pathetic having

to wait long lines for the government to feed my family

Clothes

• There was literally no money for clothes• We just had to do with what we had before

the Depression• A sweater cost $1, so it was either a

sweater or the electricity bill for the month

Toys

• I felt bad that I couldn’t buy my daughter toys

• 1 doll cost $2, so that was tough to come up with

• She had a few left from before to play with• http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-

15481_19268_20778-52530--,00.html

Neighbors

• My neighbors are all angry and mean• Everybody is stressed about money and food• Nobody gets anything besides the necessities

anymore• A lot of the neighbors are becoming unemployed

because their bosses can not afford to pay them anymore

• http://ingrimayne.com/econ/EconomicCatastrophe/GreatDepression.html

Neighbors continued

• I feel lucky because I feel that my family is a little better off than most of the neighbors

• At least I have a job at the moment• Some of the neighbors are both

unemployed (25% of the population was unemployed), I don’t know how they are even living

• I feel bad because I don’t have any money to spare to help them out

Transportation• I could not afford any type of transportationThe average car costs $300

– That is almost half of my income!– Gas for a car was 5 cents per gallon-I train hop and walk most places– Sometimes I am lucky enough to find somebody to drive me

Transportation continued

• Cabs cost 20 cents per mile• Bicycles cost $50• The train cost about 51 cents for a 30

minute ride, so it was much cheaper just to jump in and ride for free