Page 52 - All About History - Issue 26-15

1930s New York, with the Manhattan
Bridge in the background
What was it like?

NEW YORK, 1933

After the prosperity of the

1920s,theUSAfounditself Industry
New York O
USA O Although the 1930s were a hard
spiralling into a pit of debt and
time for most industries, the
despairasitenteredthe1930s private sector construction industry
suffered the most. The New Deal
n the1920s,theUSAexperiencedaboom had wrongly believed that the crisis would encouraged the city to expand
that earned the decade the name ‘the roaring quickly run its course, and the little amount the its own construction, but many
20s’. In those days of glitz and glamour, government did to combat the depression only landlords found their funds drained
national spirit and optimism were at an all resulted in the situation worsening. as tenants were unable to pay rent.
Itime high; the impossible seemed possible. Soon there was mass homelessness; New More major victims of the era were
But this came crashing down in 1929 when the York City transformed from an urban metropolis the industries that manufactured
stock market underwent a disastrous collapse. toamassofshantytownsandsoupkitchens. heavy goods like cars, machinery
The dramatic economic fallout from the crash Men struggling to provide for their families tried and refrigerators, which people and
well and truly drew the curtain on the hopeful to scrape pennies together by selling apples companies could no longer afford.
prosperity of the 1920s and plunged the country on street corners, and the city that had once
into its most crippling economic depression attractedpeoplefromfarandwidewasnow
in history.Whileunemploymentin1929was driving them out. Immigrants and even US
at just threepercent,by1933ithadrisentoa citizenspouredoutofthecity,desperatetofind Many protests broke out across the country
huge 25 per cent. The president Herbert Hoover jobs and food anywhere else. as families struggled to feed themselves
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