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The great depression unemployment
Unemployment and hardship of the great depression
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Hoover Dam began to be built during the Great Depression. There were not many jobs because of the economic stand point during the 1930s. The construction of the Hoover Dam created more jobs helping the people receive a job. Even though people received a job, safety was an issue. Some of the safety issues were weather conditions, pneumonia causes, high scalars, and discrimination. Supervisors had a goal to finish the Hoover Dam in record time. The supervisors on the Hoover Dam project were solely responsible for the deaths of the workers because they forced the workers to work in extreme conditions.
Temperature being over 120 degrees in the summer and below freezing in the winter made working conditions even worse causing another problem (Outside of China). Dehydration was a major part in the summer. Having water and lakes all over the place was not the problem solver. Lakes being dirty made the workers not drink it. Drinking the dirty water could have caused any sort of disease. As well as in the winter not only was water a problem but the clothing. Significant amount of snowfall and slippery surfaces caused many deaths of workers because of either a slip or a frost. Supervisors should have been aware about the bad weather conditions and actually cared about the workers. Wanting to finish this project in record time made the supervisors put pressure on the workers. Workers had to obey their words, if not the workers could lose their job easily. Building this dam during the Great Depression made it easy to find workers. Fast pace working was the main goal for the supervisors.
Working seven days a week for about eight hours made the workers fatigue. Having .75 cents on average an hour was not worth the working based on the harsh w...
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...merican architecture from the Alamo to the World Trade Center. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2009. Print.
Stevens, Joseph E.. Hoover Dam: an American adventure. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. Print.
Vilander, Barbara, and Ben D. Glaha. Hoover Dam: the photographs of Ben Glaha. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1999. Print.
"Travel Nevada." Travel Nevada. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. .
"Outside of China." Outside of China. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. .
Hiltzik, Michael A.. Colossus: Hoover Dam and the making of the American century. New York: Free Press, 2010. Print.
"Top 10 Deadliest Construction Projects." - Top 100 arena Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. .
John M. Barry's Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, takes us back 70 years to a society that most of us would hardly recognize.
But the process of getting these employees were satisfying to the managers but cruel to the employees themselves. In order for the managers, of the factories, to get their employees, the managers had to give to the head to the employee's family in what they called a earnest money, in which is an large amount of advanced money for the employee to work at their factories. To prove the loyalty of the employee by the family, the head of the family had to sign a contract saying that they accepted the earnest money and if there were any infringement the employee’s family had to pay more than the amount of the earnest money (Document E). In daily work life of a worker, the workers were roused from their bed at 4:05 A.M and sent to work at 6:15 A.M. during the workday the workers received 15 minutes for breakfast and lunch and a ten minute break during 3 P.M. Containing this life style was sometimes very tiring for the workers but also convenient for the working for it was a very healthy lifestyle for some (Document B). Some benefit of working at a factory were that whenever the workers wanted to be released it had to be in some excuse to be release such as getting married and family reasons. A 24 to 29 percentage of the workers getting release from their jobs were mostly due to illness or family reason and some were just release from their jobs in which is a benefit from working at these factories (Document D). Some other benefits of working in a factory was the experience according to a survey made in Japan in 1982, 90 percent of the women had said that their overall experience at working at a factory was very positive the other 10 percent said it was
The one feature common to the Hoover Dam, The Mississippi river and the three gorges dam is that they all tried to control nature’s swings, specifically in the form of flooding. Before the Hoover dam was built, the Colorado river “used to flood spectacularly…but after 1900 the Colorado provoked a vehement response” (Pg 177). The response was simple, but large. The U.S. built several large dams, including the Hoover dam, on the Colorado to decrease its flooding and increase power and irrigation. Unfortunately, just as human control of the Colorado’s flooding increased, its organisms and habitats were detrimentally influenced, and the water became more and more salinated.
Factory workers worked twelve to fifteen hours a day in hazardous condition. There were no protective rules for women and children and no insurances for job-related accidents or industrial illness. The workers were obliged to trade at company store
The South Fork Dam collapsed and unleashed 20 million tons of water from its reservoir. A wall of water, reaching up to 70 feet high, swept 14 miles down the Little Conemaugh River Valley, carrying away steel mills, houses, livestock and people. At 4:07 p.m., the floodwaters rushed into the industrial city of Johnstown, crushing houses and downtown businesses in a whirlpool that lasted 10 minutes. (New York Times, 1889).
Working conditions were described as dangerous, dirty, unhealthy, polluted, dark, dim and drafty. These workers who worked very hard with their strong muscles in these horrible conditions were not valued. If they were hurt and could not work, they were simply replaced. This was also stated in Document 4, with the same thing happening to children. In conclusion, both adult and child workers were not valued equally and treated like garbage.
At first Hoover opposed any relief efforts, but as the Depression worsened, he started a few farm assistance programs. Hoover hoped that theses farm programs would help the farmers’ situation with the low crop prices. Unfortunately farmers had to come dependent on this government handout. Hoover also started federal work projects such as the Grand Coulee Dam and the Hoover Dam. These projects provided many jobs for people and provided affordable hydroelectric power for people but the Great Depression was a much bigger problem than a few extra job openings could fix. Hoping that raising tariffs could help American business Hoover created the Hawley-Smoot Tarrif. This actually worsened economy and caused lower export rates. One of Hoover’s big mistakes was that he wouldn’t go off the gold standard. Hoov...
The state offered to sell the canal, the railroad company bought it for the right of ways yet had no need to maintain the dam, which due to neglect, broke for the first time in 1862. McCullough stresses that man was responsible for the dam and its weaknesses nearly thirty years before the great flood as he explains how the initial repair work was carried out by unqualified people and how the discharge pipes were blocked up.... ... middle of paper ... ... McCullough makes a firm argument for the responsibility of man, and asserts the blame on the necessary people, therefore I feel he makes a fair and accurate assertion which I would agree with.
Foner, Eric and John A. Garraty. The Reader’s Companion to American History. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991).
Shappee, Nathan. The History Of Johnstown and the Great Flood of 1889. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg, 1940. Print.
... the dam, leaving the workers to use just mud and some wood to try to reinforce the weakened dam. Further the fish screen that was installed to ensure that the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club did not lose any fish to the dam turned out to be a major catalyst in the dam’s final defeat. The failure of the dam to let off pressure due to the debris stuff in these net made what could have been avoided a certainty.
Breen, T.H., H.W. Brands, et al. America: Past and Present. Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson, Print.
The thirties was a time of anxiety -- after the major stock market crash of 1929, the Great Depression was sparked. The economy is in the dumps, crime rate increased, mass migrations occurred, and much more. This despair inducing time caused a majority of the American people to be poor, or if they were rich before the incident, they would at least have a much less amount of money than they had before. Many people were looking for jobs, but the country did not have any jobs to offer them. Then soon enough, the president at the time, Herbert Hoover, issued the creation of the Hoover Dam, which had opened up a large amount of jobs for the people. Sure, the job was extremely dangerous -- hundreds died in the creation of the large dam -- but the people needed money. They would’ve done almost anything in the economic grave that they dug themselves in at this point. They originally hired mostly Chinese immigrants to build the dam, but soon enough, more people in need of money were up for the job. They also started using concrete for the Hoover Dam, which has stuck until today’s time, in which most buildings are made up of concrete. Concrete is so relied on today due to its toughness and durability. The Hoover Dam popularized the use of concrete in building.
In 2001the work began on the biggest dam project in history of the human kind. The place chosen was the Great Canyon in Colorado. After six months of heavy digging, workers had found something strange.
Working shifts were beyond the control of the workers and the job was not necessarily stable because workers could be fired at any time for any reason (OI: “Working Conditions”). Moreover, the working environment was cramped and caused many problems to arise, such as the death of workers. The working class suffered greatly from the consequences of the Industrial Revolution. However, they also experienced many improvements in life, such as the decrease in prices of goods. The price of goods was able to decrease because of the increase in production.