“Growing Up” Paper Essay

The book Growing Up is ab out(p) the author Russell bread maker and about his life growing up in the early 1900s. He merryd th nervy legion(predicate) hardships while he was growing up including his father, Benny, dying, his let having to give up one of her children for adoption, and vivacious through the great impression. Although his interpret with the great depression was very bad I work out that Russell had a little bit above total life compared to other mickle living in that time period.Russell was affected by the depression in many ways while growing up. Because his nonplus couldnt check a business enterprise she had a very difficult time sustenance her family. Because of this, His mother let Bennys brother adopt their female child Audrey to ease the financial burden on their family. (Baker p.85) Russell grew up without a infant that he would had had if it werent for the great depression. non only did the great depression break up Russells family, it also force d them to move remote from his childhood home and live with his uncle Allen. (Baker p.88) Russell writes that his mother was originally going to flummox there until she found a steady byplay and could rent an flat for herself. (Baker p.88) However this didnt work out and she ended up staying there a lot longer.Allen is confident that he has a steady copious job to make it through the depression just fine yet he eventually takes in his brothers Charlie and Hal as well. It proves too much and Russell and his mother move yet again, this time to Baltimore, where Russell is forced to find a job as a paper boy to help his mother out all that he can. The Bakers still fall on hard multiplication and at one point they draw trouble getting money even for food. As a result of this they turn to the organisation to view handouts just to eat. (Russell p.200)In the book, Russell explains how his mother had to move out of their house and live with her brother and his uncle Allen because th e great depression had commenceed and his mother couldnt find a job. (Baker p.88) Although this is a bad situation to be in I intent that during the great depression it wasnt so bad considering there were raft who had no home at all and rattling had to sleep immaterial on newspapers.. (As shown by photo 3 in the powerpoint.) There were lashings of flock during the depression that has it a lot worse than Russell Baker. Russell and his family neer actually had to deal with being homeless. It was very common in large cities to have ramshackle shantytowns called Hoovervilles spring up on abandoned land that was basically a town of homeless people seeking shelter in homemade huts. (Foner p.637) (Photo6)Baker and his mother also managed to two find jobs in the city Baltimore. They werent well paying jobs and they still had to turn to the organisation for food handouts but they still managed to get jobs. Unemployment was such a spacious issue during the depression that who le companies were going under and closing down, worry U.S. Steel, who had 225,000 employed workers before 1929 and by the end of 1932 had zero. (Foner p.636) The fact that Russell and his mother both managed to find and keep jobs in Baltimore meant that they had it better that a lot of other people living in that city and they were very fortunate,The depression strickle so hard in the major cities that people decided to start moving out to the country to try to grow food for their family on farms. In fact during the great depression more than 33 meg people lived on farms. That was more than any previous point in American history. (Foner p.637) Russell Baker and his family never had to resort to such extreme measures. They never had to grow their own food to be sure that they could eat that night. Not that conditions were any better in the rural farm areas. By 1930 nearly unusually ironical weather had devastated the rural America, causing the soil to dry up and a very severe dr op in solve production. (Foner p.650) Things got so dry that the wind started blowing the topsoil away, creating the dust bowl which was basically giant sand storms that would decimate entire towns and homes. (Photo 5) Its safe to evidence that it was a good thing Russell and his family didnt have to resort to living out in the dust bowl like so many other Americans.Russell was also able to attend college after he graduate high school. This is another point that illustrates how good Russell had it during the depression. Not many people had the privilege to go to college during this time period. Lots of people were either unemployed people or working very hard at a job they were desperate to keep. The job situation had become so bad that the government started organizations specifically for creating jobs in America such as the NRA the AAA and the CCC. (Foner p.67) lettered that there were so few jobs that the government had programs specifically to create jobs makes you intend just how lucky Russell was to be able to go to college during the great depression.I do not believe that Russell Bakers experience was the average experience during the great depression. Knowing what Ive read from the Foner text and sounding at the pictures on the powerpoint, I think it paints a much contrary picture for the average experience of the great depression. One of desperation and wo that just doesnt show up in Russells story. Compared to nowadayss life for most people He absolutely had it rough but in a nation filled with homeless starved desperate people Russell didnt have it so bad. I think that he was very fortunate to live the way he did during the depression.