The rising cost of living in America today is one prominent condition that could suggest a possible second coming of The Great Depression. Especially since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, lower- and middle-class Americans are going broke. Even the cost of essential survival needs these days – energy, gasoline, food, etc. – is so high that other affluent businesses that don’t sell these products and services are going under. Financial institutions, education systems, service industries, and more will not cut prices below their operating costs so that consumers are willing to buy from them. When the people can’t afford these products and services, and can barely afford the cost to stay alive, the future doesn’t look so bright.
Some of the reasons child labor was so prominent during this time include cost of living vs. wages, industrial exploitations of families’ vulnerabilities, and lack of support for the cause. Women’s suffrage helped fuel support for reformation of such working conditions as minimum age and wage requirements; safety – physical, mental, and emotional – regulations; the eight-hour work day and the 40-hour work week. The improvement of conditions helped to stamp out child labor abuse.
I remember my dad talking about the red scare when I was a kid. He said they watched films in school about the threat and the bad, evil people involved. Today, the media exploits the racial tension and hostility between Americans and anyone from the post-Mesopotamia region of the world. Regard for any Middle-Eastern, even by association or by heritage, is mere disdain and skepticism; or at least that’s how the media tells us it is. My dad was taught by one institution as a child to distrust anyone that may be related, however so distant, to the red scare; children today are given the same lesson by the media about 9/11.
The after-effects of the Progressive Era and another World War engaged women in the workforce during the 1940s. These freshman workers were middle- to pre-retirement-aged women, many of whom had husbands off fighting the war and children to support at home. Women finally held the jobs that men would be doing were they not at war – and usually they only lasted the duration of the war. The permanent change was acceptance of women in traditionally male dominated fields of work. But it seems to me that men would still rather see the women in more traditional roles. I think men have just given up the social resistance of women because they know once women’s roles started to change, there was no stopping it. And besides, like the old saying goes, “if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
