Meridel Le Sueur Analysis

The document is written by Meridel Le Sueur about her personal feelings about the female aspects of the “Great Depression.” When discussing the “March” she clearly stated that there were many women who felt the same as she did about marching with strikers about industrial jobs. The feeling Meridel Le Sueur had was that of fear, confusion, individuality, and hypocrisy of the state and federal government. The questions that Le Sueur raises are clear due to the philosophy of the United States which is “The Golden Rule”, “Humanity”, and “Truth” towards the people especially in times of need. Considering the frame of reference she did not like (along with many other White women) could not understand that the reciprocal exchange of humanity no longer existed due to the crisis of the “Great Depression.”

The implications of her questions was a reality of rude awakening of physical fear towards herself if

she did not soon choose a side to appeal toward simply for a state of survival. Le Sueur worked at a soup kitchen operated by the industrial strikers. The men would literally go out and not return for 8, 10, 12 hours at a time. There were days when men would return unharmed and days when men would return with minor and fatal injuries sustained in the fight for reasonable wages and reasonable work environment. The most powerful lines in the document are “our life seems to be marked with a curious and muffled violence over America, but this action has always been in the dark, men and women dying obscurely, poor and poverty marked lives, but now from city to city runs this violence, into the open, and colossal happenings stand bare before our eyes, the street churning suddenly upon the pivot of mad violence, whole men suddenly spouting blood and running like living sieves, another holding a dangling arm shot squarely off, a tall youngster, running, tripping over his intestines, and one block away, in the burning sun, gay women shopping and a window dresser trying to decide whether to put green or red voile on a manikin.” The reason the lines above were chosen was for emphasis consider the violence toward unarmed Black Americans recently and the riots that followed the theme is the “… muffled violence over America, but this action has always been in the dark, men and women dying obscurely, poor and poverty marked lives, but now from city to city runs this violence, into the open, and colossal happenings stand bare before our eyes…”.

In conclusion, this is America that Meridel Le Sueur found out actually existed in the “Great Depression”.

The women’s response had no choice but to be selective in the choice of voice toward and opinion let alone action that would cause any shift in the leadership status of her counterpart the White male. Considering the reference at that time White women had fewer overall equal rights than a free Black man. It is during this time that Le Sueur also noticed the distinction that there was organization but organization in a sense of separation between rich, poor, White, Black, Women and Men yet not for the benefit of helping those in need of economic assistance. She also noticed that if you were a woman with children your opportunities that were not abundant to begin with were reduced drastically because of the parental responsibility of the mother considering the father is gone consistently from the home in search of employment. Her document of how she feels along with many other women during that era is a perfect example of history again returning full

circle.