WORLD HISTORY AND FACTS

Ordinary People Great Depression–world history and facts The Great Depression affected American society and culture in profound ways. Students should consider How did ordinary people respond to the Great Depression?  The effects of the Depression were worsened by the Dust Bowl, a result of natural drought combined with unwise agricultural practices that led to the dislocation of farmers who could no longer make a living from agriculture in the Great Plains.  The famed Okies, portrayed in the literature of John Steinbeck and photographs of Dorothea Lange (among other artists of the 1930s), were pushed off their land and joined the significant migration of workers who came to California in search of work and opportunities only to find themselves treated poorly and in a continued state of economic turmoil.  In addition to migrant farmworkers faring poorly during the Depression, the trial of the Scottsboro Boys, nine black youths falsely charged with raping two white women, illuminates the