Published in the United States of America by Cherry Lake Publishing Ann Arbor Michigan www cherrylakepublishing com Consultants Douglas A Irwin Professor Economics Department Dartmouth College Marla Conn ReadAbility Inc Editorial direction Red Line Editorial Book design Sleeping Bear Press Photo Credits Dorothea Lange Library of Congress cover 1 30 Harris Ewing Collection Library of Congress 4 9 13 Bettmann Corbis 6 25 Farm Security Administration Library of Congress 10 Russell Lee Library of Congress 14 Albert M Bender Library of Congress 16 J A Mitchell Corbis 19 Ernest Lindsay Corbis 21 National Photo Company Collection Library of Congress 22 Marion Post Wolcott Library of Congress 28 Copyright 2015 by Cherry Lake Publishing All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Baxter Roberta 1952 The Great Depression Roberta Baxter pages cm Perspectives library Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-1-63137-618-4 hardcover ISBN 978-1-63137-663-4 pbk ISBN 978-1-63137-708-2 pdf ebook ISBN 978-1-63137-753-2 hosted ebook 1 United States History 1933-1945 Juvenile literature 2 United States History 1919-1933 Juvenile literature 3 Depressions 1929 United States Juvenile literature I Title E806 B37 2014 973 917 dc23 2014004767 Cherry Lake Publishing would like to acknowledge the work of The Partnership for 21st Century Skills Please visit www p21 org for more information Printed in the United States of America Corporate Graphics Inc July 2014
Table of Contents In this book you will read about three people living through the Great Depression The hard economic times that hit the United States in the 1930s brought struggles to many As you’ll see the same event can look different depending on one’s point of view Chapter 1 4 Arthur Maxwell Government Worker Chapter 2 14 Tom Mallory Civilian Conservation Corps Chapter 3 22 Clara Jennings 12-year-old Girl Look Look Again 30 Glossary 3 1 Learn More 3 1 Index 32 About the Author 32
1 4 I work at the Department of Commerce for the United States I am a junior economist so I collect and analyze the numbers of employed people salary amounts types of jobs and other information Other government officials can then see the state of the economy When I started my job in July 1929 it seemed that the economy was soaring People had Arthur Maxwell Government Worker
5 good jobs the stock market was booming and prices of goods were reasonable The farmers especially those out West faced problems with low prices for their crops But I believed that would soon level out and the farmers would be in better shape like the rest of the country The events of October to November 1929 startled everyone The value of company stocks listed on the stock market went way down People started selling their stocks to get what value was left Some stocks became worthless The people who owned those stocks lost all the money they had invested The newspapers estimated that by the end of 1929 several billion dollars had been lost Mostly banks or wealthy people like business owners owned stocks Many stocks dropped Find another source on the beginning of the Great Depression Compare it with the information in this chapter Second Source
