Any Human to Another (Historical Context)

Historical Context

On October 29, 1929, after a decade of postwar growth and prosperity, the U.S. stock market collapsed. This event was followed by the cycle of poverty known as the Great Depression that lasted throughout the 1930s. There are dozens of theories about what caused the Depression, but most of them agree about the importance, to various degrees, of several key points: that the confidence of U.S. investors was so shaken by the stock market crash that they kept their money out of circulation, which hindered economic recovery; that the failures of some banks put strain on the banks remaining, which then shut down, taking unheard-of sums of money out of circulation and overburdening the economy; and that similar financial disasters in other countries, many of them the consequences of the World War that had ended in 1918, kept America from recovering quickly from what could have been a slight economic downturn. The effects of the Great Depression are easier to note, by examining the lives of people in the 1930s. It is estimated that by 1932, the height of the Depression, 12 million Americans were unemployed. This huge figure becomes an even larger percentage when we realize that the U.S. population then was only 124 million, less than half of what it is today, and that women were rarely part of the customary workforce and would therefore not have been counted in unemployment statistics. Although actual starvation was scarce during the Depression, malnutrition rose dramatically: people struggling to obtain food could not be too finicky about maintaining a well-balanced diet. People who once had been employed in prestigious occupations — stock brokers, teachers, and business owners, for example — would walk ten miles or more to wait in line for hours, just to be considered for a job opening. Middle-class families lost their houses when they were unable to keep up with the mortgage payments, and they moved into increasingly smaller apartments and worse neighborhoods. Those who could not afford to pay any rent at all moved in with relatives. It was not uncommon to have three or four families living under one roof. Because money was tight, the country had no need for anything but the barest basic services, so the jobs that were still available were mostly in manual labor. A trained, experienced professional might find it a mark of honor to be hired as a grill cook or gas station attendant, avoiding the even greater shame of being idle.

In and around cities, people at least had neighbors and community organizations to turn to for support. In rural areas (and one quarter of America was rural at the time), poverty was devastating. At the same time that the Depression was driving down the prices that consumers could afford for food, a drought hit several key farming states. This area was settled quickly in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, and because the inexperienced farmers had used improper farming techniques, the soil eroded when the drought hit. Parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado became so dry and barren that they were referred to as the Dust Bowl. While Dust Bowl farmers were unable to produce anything from their land, other U.S. farms were producing more than the marketplace could buy. Prices fell and surplus food that consumers could not pay for rotted in storage. Farmers who could not pay back the money that they had borrowed for seeds and feed for livestock lost their homes and moved to cities, which already had more unskilled workers than they could use Some families stayed on their land, ate what they could grow without hired workers, and did without products that had to be bought with money, such as clothes or heating oil.

In 1932, the country elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the presidency for the first time (Roosevelt eventually won four presidential elections before his death in 1945). Beginning in 1933, his first year in office, Roosevelt’s administration began introducing new programs that used federal money to help the poor, the unemployed, and the homeless. Collectively, Roosevelt’s programs to handle the depressed economy were referred to as “The New Deal.” A limited amount of money went directly to unemployed people in the form of “relief” payments. The New Deal also established programs that put the unemployed to work: the Civilian Conservation Corps put three million men to work in the national forests, planting trees and building observation towers and laying telephone lines; the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was to develop the Tennessee River and its tributaries and which pays for itself to this day with the sale of electricity from Hoover Dam; and the National Industrial Recovery Act, which authorized the Public Works Administration to hire citizens to construct roads, buildings, dams, and other public structures.

In 1935, the year this poem was published, a second “New Deal” was announced. This one contained policies that especially bothered many of the rich people who had not lost their money. Taxes on the rich were raised. Privately owned utility companies, which provided necessary services, were subject to government regulation. The National Labor Relations Act assured the rights of organized labor, and the Fair Labor Standards Act established minimum wages and maximum working hours. The Social Security Act introduced the program that we use to this day to make sure that non-working senior citizens and the handicapped will not be destroyed by poverty. “Any Human to Another” was written at a time in this country’s history when circumstances put millions of people in need of help, and the government responded, even though the same complaints of “government interference” and “welfare cheats” that are heard today were also common then.

The Depression ran its course by the end of the 1930s and was over when war broke out in Europe in 1939. Producing weapons and consumer goods for the countries involved in the war boosted economic conditions in the United States, which did not enter the war until 1941. Due to increased production during World War II and the continuation of New Deal policies afterward, the United States has been fortunate enough to avoid another depression since.

Compare & Contrast

• 1935: Soil erosion was an enormous problem in the United States. Loose soil blowing off of farms created dust storms that could turn day into night, closing schools and stopping traffic. The newly formed Soil Conservation Service estimated that erosion cost the country $400 million per year.

  Today: Although erosion is still a problem in places where the land will not accept plant life, scientific farming techniques have helped keep the problem under control.

• 1935: German Chancellor Adolph Hitler ordered a new selective breeding program, to be administered by the Nazi SS, encouraging women to contribute their services to having children with SS officers in order to produce blonde, blue-eyed children with Nordic features.

  1945: Hitler committed suicide as the Allied forces were moving in to defeat Germany.

  1963: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his famous speech in which he states, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

  1994: A famous and controversial book, The Bell Curve, by American educators Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, and others, asserted that whites are intellectually superior to blacks because of their genetic makeup, but went on to explain, “We cannot think of a legitimate argument why whites and blacks need be affected by the knowledge that an aggregate difference in measured intelligence is genetic instead of environmental ”

  Today: Racism and sexism are socially unacceptable, but people still misuse scientific evidence to support their prejudices.

• 1935: Nylon — a synthetic fiber with the texture and appearance of natural fibers, but with stronger tensile strength — was developed. In addition, polyethylene, the first true plastic, was developed in a British laboratory.

  1941: Nylon stockings were introduced the previous year and proved to be immensely popular, but after the invasion of Pearl Harbor all available nylon was immediately put to use in parachutes for the war.

  Today: Because the use of plastics is so widespread and the materials are so durable, recycling programs have been developed across the country to keep discarded materials from polluting the land and water.