In a Facebook post on March 9, 2016, Gerald Mullen posted “When we were lucky enough to have Cheerios and mild, we had to eat ‘em with a fork, then pass the unused milk on to the next kid.” Gerald Mullen grew up in southern Indiana during the Great Depression and lived the tough life that many others had to live as well. Struggling to earn enough money to live, families often needed the children to drop out of school to work. The struggles of that era varied upon where the family lived during that time. Damaged farmland, alcoholism, and unemployment, caused households much grief during the Great Depression. With terrain and terribly eroded soil, southern Indiana’s agriculture suffered greatly during the great depression. Land referred to
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Eroded and useless, the unfarmable land left farmers unable to pay property taxes and bills to keep their farm; therefore, this made them sell what little land they owned. (History) Abandoned and forgotten the farms sometimes became targets for people to raid. Raiders, though did not just rob from abandoned farmland. In the book Dufftown, author Hugo Songer retells a story of an encounter with a raider, “ Our chickens were raising a ruckus one night and the dog, Nipper, was going crazy too. Dad got up, loaded his shotgun, and went outside. Clearly someone, or something, was in the chicken house so he fired into the air and yelled ‘Get out of my chick house or I’ll come down there and shoot you....’” Usually younger men, these farm robbers would steal wood, crops, or even livestock. (Songer 29) Because of the loss of farms, unemployment continued to grow. With farm land failing, farmers turned to making and selling moonshine illegally. During the roaring twenties, a higher part …show more content…
Southern Indiana, like many other regions of the United States during the Great Depression, had many struggles to overcome including alcoholism unemployment, newly eroded, unfarmable land, and financial stability. “I didn’t really understand what was going on in the economy. I just knew everyone was poor. That’s just how it was.” Not everyone understood what the Great Depression necessarily meant to the country economically, but they knew that money was not something to waste. This tough era in history forever changed the people that lived through it. They will never forget the sacrifices they had to make to
Eroded and useless, the unfarmable land left farmers unable to pay property taxes and bills to keep their farm; therefore, this made them sell what little land they owned. (History) Abandoned and forgotten the farms sometimes became targets for people to raid. Raiders, though did not just rob from abandoned farmland. In the book Dufftown, author Hugo Songer retells a story of an encounter with a raider, “ Our chickens were raising a ruckus one night and the dog, Nipper, was going crazy too. Dad got up, loaded his shotgun, and went outside. Clearly someone, or something, was in the chicken house so he fired into the air and yelled ‘Get out of my chick house or I’ll come down there and shoot you....’” Usually younger men, these farm robbers would steal wood, crops, or even livestock. (Songer 29) Because of the loss of farms, unemployment continued to grow. With farm land failing, farmers turned to making and selling moonshine illegally. During the roaring twenties, a higher part …show more content…
Southern Indiana, like many other regions of the United States during the Great Depression, had many struggles to overcome including alcoholism unemployment, newly eroded, unfarmable land, and financial stability. “I didn’t really understand what was going on in the economy. I just knew everyone was poor. That’s just how it was.” Not everyone understood what the Great Depression necessarily meant to the country economically, but they knew that money was not something to waste. This tough era in history forever changed the people that lived through it. They will never forget the sacrifices they had to make to