“Growing Up” Paper Essay

The book Growing Up is techyly the author Russell bread maker and ab place his brio growing up in the early 1900s. He lived through m near(prenominal) hardships man he was growing up including his father, Benny, dying, his induce having to give up 1 of her children for adoption, and living through the broad realise. Although his intimacy with the enceinte opinion was real noisome I deliberate that Russell had a unforesightful bit above average life compared to early(a) plurality living in that cartridge clip period.Russell was affected by the slack in many ways while growing up. Because his let couldnt materialize a none she had a precise difficult time supporting her family. Because of this, His mother let Bennys sidekick adopt their daughter Audrey to ease the financial burden on their family. (Baker p.85) Russell grew up with expose a sister that he would had had if it werent for the gr ware depression. Not only did the great depression break up Russel ls family, it in addition forced them to fire away from his childhood home and live with his uncle Allen. (Baker p.88) Russell writes that his mother was in the beginning going to stay in that location until she run aground a steady rail line and could pursue an apartment for herself. (Baker p.88) However this didnt clip out and she ended up staying there a lot longer.Allen is confident that he has a steady enough channel to make it through the depression still fine but he in conclusion takes in his pals Charlie and Hal as intumesce. It proves too oftentimes and Russell and his mother move yet again, this time to Baltimore, where Russell is forced to play a job as a paper male child to help his mother out whole that he can. The Bakers still f alone on hard times and at oneness top they reserve trouble thrum money even for nutrition. As a result of this they turn to the regime to contract handouts upright 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 the great depression had started and his mother couldnt find a job. (Baker p.88) Although thisis a disadvantageously situation to be in I feel that during the great depression it wasnt so bad considering there were raft who had no home at all and actually had to sleep outside on newspapers.. (As sh proclaim by photo 3 in the powerpoint.) There were lots of volume 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 truly common in large cities to have ramshackle shantytowns called Hoovervilles spring up on abandoned land that was basically a town of homeless people want shelter in homemade huts. (Foner p.637) (Photo6)Baker and his mother similarly managed to both find jobs in the metropolis Baltimore. They werent well paying jobs and they still had to turn to the politics for food handou ts but they still managed to get jobs. Unemployment was such a big have it off during the depression that whole companies were going down the stairs and closing down, identical 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 hit 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 zillion people lived on farms. That was more than any previous point in the Statesn 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 agrarian farm areas. By 1930 some unusually teetotal weather had devastated the rural America, causing the soil to dry up and a very severe demean in crop production. (Foner p.650) Things got so dry that the wind started blowing the topsoil away, creating the dust bankroll which was basically giant sand storms that would root out entire towns and homes. (Photo 5) Its safe to state 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 graduated 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. split of people were either unemployed or working very hard at a job they were fearful 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. (Fon er p.67) keen that there were so few jobs that the government had programs specifically to create jobs makes you think just how lucky Russell was to be able to go to college during the great depression.I do not believe that Russell Bakers get laid was the average experience during the great depression. versed what Ive read from the Foner text and expression at the pictures on the powerpoint, I think it paints a much different picture for the average experience of the great depression. whizz of desperation and sadness that just doesnt show up in Russells story. Compared to todays life for virtually people He absolutely had it rough but in a ground filled with homeless starving desperate people Russell didnt have it so bad. I think that he was very fortunate to live the way he did during the depression.