Whether it was suffering from unemployment, a wage cut, or from not having enough money left over after paying their bills, many New Yorkers found themselves so poor they could not afford to eat on their own expense, and often resulted to waiting on bread-lines for food. The term breadline refers to the lines that …
Author: Brian Ferraro
Hoovervilles in Depression-Era New York
One of the most pressing issues during the Depression was the thousands of people who faced the struggle of finding shelter after being evicted from their homes and being forced out onto the streets. Many New Yorkers took to living in make-shift huts and homes located in parks or in alleyways. Large settlements of …
Harlem Riots, March 19, 1935
Although poverty, hunger, and the need for shelter affected New Yorkers all over the city, there was no place in the city of New York that struggled with these problems more than those who lived in Harlem, New York. Residents of Harlem found themselves not only having to deal with an unemployment rate of over …
Stock Market Crash of 1929
The cause of this era all falls back to the events within a period of a single week during the month of October, a week where the fate of the nation would be affected for an entire decade. The fateful week started with the events of Wednesday October 23rd, when waves of panicked investors sold …