Preview

Riding the Rails

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
762 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Riding the Rails
The Great Depression was a very difficult time in American history. The Great Depression was the longest and most severe depression that was experienced in the Western World. The movie Riding the Rails is a good example of times during this depression. The movie presents a story of ten men and women in their youth, who gave their accounts about leaving their homes in search of a better life. I think Riding the Rails gives a very clear and accurate view of how life was for young teenagers during these historical times. During the 1930’s at the time of desperation and hardship people were affected by economic conditions that were beyond their control. These conditions brought about hunger, loss of homes, and lack of jobs. At the height of The Great Depression there were more than 250, 000 teenagers living on the road in America (Uys.,Lovell., 2005). Riding the Rails vividly shares the lives and the experiences of then youths who rode the rails or trains, as teenagers. Some left home to escape poverty or troubled families and others left because it seemed like it would be a great adventure. Teenagers who were new to the rails had high hopes of where their journeys would take them. The movie describes these teenagers searching for a better life and their secrets for survival. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word ‘hobo’ as “one who wonders from place to place without a permanent home or a means of livelihood.” (Haughton Miffin Company). Historically, many people have been forced into becoming hobos or people who traveled around, because of jobs being scarce. They had no choice but to travel from place to place in search of work to survive. Hobos are often associated with train hopping, because that’s what many did during The Great Depression. Most hobos would hide among the tracks outside of the yard. Then they would run along the train, grab a hold and jump into the open boxcars. Once on the boxcar many teens headed to


References: Haughton Miffin Company., (June, 2001). The American History Dictionary, fourth edition. Dell Publishing. Mcelvaine, R., (Dec, 1993). The Great Depression: America 1929-1941. Three Rivers Press Publishing. Pp. 30-100. Uys, M., Lovell, L., (2005). Riding the Rails. WGBH Educational Foundation.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Great Depression

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Throughout the Great Depression, people seemed to change how they thought about themselves and the relationships to the country and world. About thirty million Americans lost their jobs and with that, many labor strikes had formed as well as unionizations. Through the thoughts of the men and women, there became a new understanding about strength and power of the general people and racial and gender divisions.…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Depression

    • 590 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Great Depression was a tragedy for the whole world, but it mostly damaged specifically one country, which had the best economic system in the world at that time - United States of America. The Great Depression was an economic collapse from 1930s to 1940s. This economic disaster was brought to life because of a huge amount of problems. There even were different types of problems, such as social, political, economic, or military problems. All together, they created this economic collapse.…

    • 590 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Hope is a very powerful emotion; if you have hope it gives you the will to survive. Theses two things combined drove people to not give up during the Great Depression. Irene Hunt tells the tale of the Grondowski Family’s fight to survive the Great Depression, in the book No Promises in the Wind. The Great Depression was a financial and industrial slump. It began in 1929 and ended in 1940. Thus marking the harshest depression of the United States.…

    • 2193 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great Depression DBQ

    • 563 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Life during the 1930’s was devastating for some. Many individuals were affected by the great depression in different ways, some losing everything. Economic, social, and political reasoning are three of the many causes of the great…

    • 563 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Depression occurred during the 1930s when the stock market crashed and all the banks closed. The United States of America became poor and all the citizens had little money and there was barely any jobs. Most men looking for jobs had to take a train and just head in the direction it was going until they found a job (McCabe). In To Kill a Mockingbird the Great Depression is occurring and it has some references to how it was hard to find jobs. There was also the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials that influenced a few things in To Kill a Mockingbird.…

    • 1032 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great Depression Causes

    • 1060 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Great Depression was an awful point in history. It was a worldwide economic slump of the 1930’s. Banks, factories, and shops all closed. Millions of people were left jobless. Many people had to depend on the government or charity to provide them with their everyday needs. Rising unemployment, declining production, and falling prices spread rapidly to the rest of the world in the early 1930's. The Depression caused world trade to slow down a lot, as countries tried to help their own industries by increasing restrictions on imports.…

    • 1060 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Depression was an economic downturn that left most of America crippled againsts its wraith. Although, in every cave there's a glimmer of hope. The Great Depression is known as America’s greatest collapse but out of this derailment came experiences and new way of oeuvre, John Steinbeck's, Of Mice and Men displayed how the Great Depression affected the characters in the book. The characters affected by the alienation from government aid and loneliness caused by the stresses of everyday challenges from race to mental intellect.…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Depression Dbq

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Great Depression was a huge piece of our history here in the United States. It was a time of hope, struggle, and poverty. Some of the vital factors that contributed to the formation of the Great Depression include the rapid purchasing of stocks and the stock market crash, weak banking structure, and the care free spending among wealthy Americans. The Depression was not at all the outcome of one problem, rather multiple problems.…

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the depression, many Americans spoke their minds through pen and paper. Many criticized Hoover’s policies of the early Depression and praised the Roosevelts’ efforts. Each opinion about the causes and solutions of the Great Depression are based upon economic, racial and social standing in America.…

    • 1371 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    North vs South

    • 3107 Words
    • 13 Pages

    The Great Depression is one of the most misunderstood events in not only American history but also Great Britain, France, Germany, and many other industrialized nations. It also has had important consequences and was an extremely devastating event in America. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world. When the New York Stock Exchange crashed in October 1929, the United States dropped sharply into a major depression. The world was in wide demand for agricultural goods during World War I, but they had rapidly decreased after the war and rural America experienced a severe depression throughout most of the 1920's and even on into the 1930's. One of the major losses for agriculture was due to banks foreclosing farm mortgages because the farmers could no longer pay their mortgages. By the early 1930's, thousands of American farmers were out of businesses. Major businesses, however, had to increase profits through most of the decade although wages remained low and workers were unable to buy the goods they had helped produce. The financial and banking systems were very unregulated and a number of banks had failed during the 1920's. Not only did the Great Depression affect the United States as a whole, there were many different effects on both the North and South.…

    • 3107 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Great Depression was one of the worst hardships that the United states have ever been through. On October 29th, 1929, the Stock Market crashed causing the Great Depression. Throughout the 1930s, the Great Depression, caused massive unemployment, many banks to fail, and left a strong impression on the people who survived it. As the United States’ economy plummeted the government made a New Deal with the public to try to get them out of the slump. The New Deal was able to keep things going until World War 2 lifted the economy back up out of its slump. Until this happened, an entire generation experienced many hardships during the Great Depression and learned many lessons from them. These lessons, like saving money and being competitive would shape the way these people lived for the rest of their lives.…

    • 2390 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Depression was a hard time for Americans. The time of the depression was a time of recession in the economy. Nobody's life was easy during this time; People tried to make the best of it though. The Great Depression affected people in many different ways.…

    • 183 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Great Depression Era was the longest depression in history from 1929 to 1932. This was a time of economic failure, unemployment, cuts in production, and less spending. The movie that I watched, “Annie” is about an orphan that as volunteered to spend Christmas with one of the wealthiest man in America at the time of the 1930s’ and finally she gets adopt. So this movie talks about the view points from the wealthy community, also the poor community, and how the Great Depression affected both the poor and rich communities.…

    • 393 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Great Depression was a massive devastation throughout the whole of America where people suffered and the economy was at a huge crisis. The Unemployment rose from 3% to 26% and many people had died, showing how hard the citizens coped to survive in-between this difficult period. . The Americans were in a depriving financial state full of high inflation after an economic fall known as the 'The Wall Street Crash'…

    • 2537 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Imagine a time where there were no jobs, and the ones that were available weren’t paying enough to help anyone survive. Kids roamed the streets and little cardboard shackle houses were where most of the population lived, it was dangerous and unclean. Then there were the people who would jump aboard a train to seek work in other towns, or just go to see the world. There were approximately 2 million men, 8,000 women (Ganzel), and 250,000 teens (“Riding the Rails” Encyclopedia.com). The ones who had become hobos were all different ages and from all different types of areas and families. They had little to no food or shelter when they were on the move from place to place. They would scrap off of whatever they could find…

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays