The Great Depression: How Chicago Overcame its Challenges

Name:
Professor’s Name:
Course:
Date:
The Great Depression: How Chicago Overcame its Challenges.
Eric Greiten’s The Heart and the Fist: The education of a humanitarian, the making of a Navy SEAL offers an insight into what it took for individuals to survive the Great Depression in Chicago. Like many other places and cities in the United States, Chicago was not spared the adverse effects of the Great Depression ranging from the massive job loss to the foreclosure of businesses and shutdown of the city’s manufacturing industries. Amidst the tough economic times and desperation among the city dwellers, people still find the strength to move on and live their lives in the best way they can and within the available means of surviving. The author outlines some of the key elements and factors that determined a person’s survival of the tough living conditions courtesy of the Great Depression.
Greiten refers to a narrative of an ivy league student’s quest for a meaningful life to highlight some of the principles of life embraced by the survivors of the Great Depression. The protagonist’s interaction with his trainer makes some interesting revelations into the latter’s past life through which the readers or the audience can create a vivid picture of Chicago during the Great Depression. Sennholz’s and Gene Smiley’s articles on the Great Depression in the United States further shed light into the dire conditions facing the country during the 10 years. Surviving and overcoming the challenges posed by the Great Depression required embracing a set of principles, values, and beliefs in one’s daily activities in Chicago and its environs.
It is important to have an understanding of the global economic phenomenon marking the financial history of the world, the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a decade-long period of hardships across the United States with unforeseen challenges affecting the social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of societies and the nation as a whole. The leading economies of the world and most industrialized countries were not prepared for the negative impacts of the deteriorating free market economy at the onset of the 1920s (Smiley, pg. 2). The financial market, for instance, played a significant role in contributing to or influencing the Great Depression lasting from 1929 to 1939 (Sennholz, pg. 1).
The decade accounted for a wide range of business closures, loss of homes, massive loss of jobs, and collapsing of major banking or financial institutions in the United States and most of the Western economies. A majority of the American population were rendered homeless as they failed to meet their mortgage dues and loan repayments to the equally striving banking and financial institutions seeking to survive the harsh economic and market conditions CITATION Fre05 \l 1033 (Freedman). Like investors and manufacturers, farmers also had their fair share of the adverse effects of the global economic meltdown. The social order maintained during the flourishing times of the America economy soon became the opposite with most individuals facing or harboring negative feelings of frustrations, fear, and anxiety over the uncertainty of their future.