History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 10

History - Essay Example These letters show how many Americans were affected by the Great Depression, yet it also examines individual experiences and reactions to such experiences.1 2. What are the advantages of using letters as opposed to oral histories or reports by New Deal investigators to learn about the responses of ordinary people to the great depression? How did people respond? Did different classes (upper, middle, lower), racial groups, age groups, or men vs. women respond differently? There are certainly advantages to McElvaine’s use of letters in his account of the United States during the Great Depression compared to using oral histories or indeed using the reports of New Deal Investigators. Oral histories are not always accurate if they are recounted years or even decades after the events they describe. People may not always remember things accurately, or they might get details muddled up. On the other hand reports by New Deal reporters may not always be considered to be reliable, as with any organization set up by a government they could have presented a more positive light on events. Such inaccuracies would have been to demonstrate that the New Deal was successfully countering the worst affects of the Great Depression. People of different social, economic, and racial groups wrote the letters as the Great Depression had an impact on all sections of American society. Whilst previous economic recessions had hit the poorest the hardest, the Great Depressi on was unprecedented in scale and severity with up to 30 million people affected. President Hoover’s attempts to restore confidence in the economy failed whilst measures to alleviate poverty and unemployment proved wholly inadequate. 2 The Great Depression hit agriculture and industrial workers hard, the collapse of banks affected everybody. The agricultural sector was particularly affected by