Source D shows a report from the Jarrow Public Health Committee, published in 1933. Source E shows the Death rates and infant mortality rates in Jarrow and nationally, also published by the Jarrow Public Health Committee
How useful are sources D and E in helping you to understand the effects of the depression upon people in Jarrow?
Source D shows a report from the Jarrow Public Health Committee, published in 1933. Source E shows the Death rates and infant mortality rates in Jarrow and nationally, also published by the Jarrow Public Health Committee. They are both useful to some extent as it shows how the depression affected Jarrow.
Source D is useful because it is part of a report from the Jarrow Public Health Committee; we can trust the person who wrote this as they are writing to inform the government about Jarrow. It is useful as they describe a house in Jarrow to show the effects of the depression upon a normal family. There may be some amount of bias in this as it is written to inform the government about people who live in Jarrow so the author of the report may be exaggerating.
In source D it says ''we enter a tunnel-like passage with bare walls''. The author is clearly biased as he is not only using facts but opinions. He said ''tunnel-like passage''. He is using his own opinion of the passage. He also says ''and then go up a dark bare wooden staircase''. This also backs up my theory that he is using his own opinions because he said ''dark'' and ''bare'', this is suggesting that this house is in poor condition.
The author is implying that the living room is not what a living room looks like by saying ''at the top we enter the ''living-room'' of a two bedroomed house''. By putting the living-room in inverted commas we picture this living room in poor condition and not what a living room usually looks like. He says that it is a two-bedroomed house, we then assume that a very small family live here. Later it says ''a family of seven live here''. This shocks the readers as they have said that it is a two bedroomed house. This helps us understand the effects of the depression upon people in Jarrow because a family of seven is forced to live in a two-bedroomed house. We can see that the effects of the depression upon people in Jarrow were severe. They were clearly very poor after the depression.
The author is trying to make the reader sympathise with Jarrow because he says ''it is a small room, perhaps ten feet square''. It shows that the people of Jarrow were very poor as they had to fit a family of seven into a two-bedroomed house, with a small living room perhaps ten feet square''. He is using opinions, we know this because instead of stating that the living room is ten feet square, the author says that ''it is a small room''.
Source D shows that the people are not living in good standards because the author says ''the room is crowded and hot''. This is useful to us because it shows that they have to suffer in their own house. By having to share the living room between seven people we can imagine that it must get very hot and stuffy. This shows that they do not have perfect living conditions.
We can infer that the houses have not had any new furniture from the report because it says ''a fire burns in an old-fashioned grate''. This ...
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Source D shows that the people are not living in good standards because the author says ''the room is crowded and hot''. This is useful to us because it shows that they have to suffer in their own house. By having to share the living room between seven people we can imagine that it must get very hot and stuffy. This shows that they do not have perfect living conditions.
We can infer that the houses have not had any new furniture from the report because it says ''a fire burns in an old-fashioned grate''. This shows that the houses are not modernised. This is because of the depression; we can see that the people are very poor now. People are poor due to unemployment and the 'Means Test'. The means tests is a reason for little furniture as everything of value got taken away from them.
This source is showing that the effects of the depression were very severe as it the report is saying how the houses are not modernised and they were poor because they could not buy new furniture or a big house. They can only afford a two-bedroomed house between a family of seven. From this we can assume that most of the houses in Jarrow were similar to this one.
Due to the depression we can see that the people in Jarrow were very poor because he says ''the washing hangs on a string, mostly children's garments, old and ragged. This is useful to us because it shows that because of the depression they cannot buy essentials like clothes.
Despite what the source tells us about living conditions the source is limited because it is not the whole report, source D only shows part of a report, so you do not know if the rest of the report was based on opinions or if they used facts. In the rest of the report they could have described the house in a 'good light'. We also do not know the purpose of the source, it doesn't say. It may have been to show the standards of living in Jarrow. Because the source is limited in these ways it is not useful, therefore it is not reliable. It is not very reliable because it is only a description of one house. The other houses in Jarrow may not have been like this; they may have been in a better or worse state. We do not know about the other houses.
The effect of the depression, according to source D, is that there is poverty, especially in the northern parts of England. The depression hit Jarrow badly. Poverty could lead to ill health. You can see from the description that people in Jarrow lived in unhygienic houses. We can see this because it says ''the room is crowded and hot''. Seven people would have had to fit in a small room together.
Overall I do not think that source D if very useful because it appears to be biased. Jarrow's Public Health Committee has used opinions of the house they based their report on, they did not use facts. Therefore it is not very useful in helping me to understand the effects of the depression. Source E is also of some use as source E shows the Death rates and infant mortality rates in Jarrow and nationally. It is published by the Jarrow Public Health Committee, this means that the local authorities were aware of the problems being caused but they couldn't do much about it. Source E allows you to compare Jarrow's figures with the national average for death rates and infant mortality.
This source shows death rates and infant mortality. Infant mortality is the amount of babies dying. It is useful because this source is using facts, they are not using opinions. It has some limitations because although it shows the death rates and infant mortality rates we do not know how many it is out of. Jarrow may also have more people in their region.
We can clearly see the difference between the figures because the national figures are placed alongside the Jarrow figures to show the extreme malnutrition and poor health amongst people in Jarrow.
Jarrow's Public Health Committee has shown the death rates and infant mortality rates on only a few years. We do not know why they have selected these 3 specific years. The years they chose were 1919, 1931 and 1936. This source is somewhat limited because we do not know why the Public Health Committee chose these specific years.
1919 is before the Wall Street Crash, so it was before the depression, however the death rates are still higher than the National Average. Jarrow's death rate for 1919 was 20, while the National Average was 13. This suggests that there was poor housing and health even before the Depression. The infant mortality rate in Jarrow is 151, while the National Average was 58. This suggests that there is poor hygiene and that mothers are not giving birth in hygienic areas. This is backed up by source D because source D was a description of a poor, unhygienic house.
Jarrow's Public Health Committee also chose the year 1931. In 1931 we know that the 'Means Test' was introduced. The 'Means Test' was where an inspector would enter the house of anyone claiming benefit to check the 'means'. They wouldn't get any money unless anything of value was sold. From this I can see that the government were bankrupt as they had to take away anything of value before they could receive 'The Dole'. Also by the end of 1931 there had been marches in more than thirty towns. Source E shows that for 1931 the Death Rate in Jarrow were 15, while the Death Rate for the National Average was 10. This is a smaller difference that in 1919. This shows that Jarrow was in a worse state than other regions.
The last year they chose was 1936. In 1936 there was also an outbreak of Spanish Influenza, which would have killed many children. In 1936 there was the Jarrow crusade. It took place because in the 1930s there was an economic depression throughout the world, largely caused by the Wall Street Crash, World trade slumped which meant that people were not producing goods to sell. This led to workers no longer being needed. People became unemployed and therefore earned no money. The Jarrow Crusade was a march organised by the people of the town from Jarrow to London. The object was to attract attention to the plight of the town. They wanted parliament and the people in the south to understand that they were orderly, responsible citizens, but were living in a region where there were many difficulties, and where there was 70% unemployment.
In 1936 the Death Rate in Jarrow was 15, while the Death Rate for the National Average was 9. In 1936 there was an outbreak of Spanish Influenza, we can see from the figures that the national average in 1936 has increased. It may be due to the outbreak of Spanish Influenza which kills children and babies. The Death Rate in Jarrow is the same as in 1931. The source is somewhat limited because you do not know if the Death Rates for Jarrow has stayed constant during the years 1932 to 1935, or if they had increased or decreased before reaching 15 in 1936. However the National Average has decreased since 1931, dropping to 9. Jarrow's Infant Mortality rate is 114, while the National Average is 57. We can see that babies from Jarrow are more likely to die because they have very high infant mortality rates. It has decreased since 1931 which could be due to an increase in healthcare.
From source E I can see that the Death Rates and infant Mortality rates are much higher in Jarrow than the National Average, this shows me that Jarrow has very poor hygiene and high levels of people that are ill. Most women are giving birth in their homes and if their homes are in the same state as the one described in source D there is a high chance of the mother dying during labour because of the poor hygiene. There was a poor quality of housing in Jarrow; this supports the high death rates.
Women suffered worse than men because they were not covered for medical treatment. They had to pay to see a doctor; this was at a time where money was scarce. One woman had her daughter before the 1939 war; she had to pay £2 deposit and another 10 shillings when she came. She never went to the doctor's and there was a post natal clinic but she didn't go. She said that she got no help with anything. This shows how tough it was on women as there was a possibility that they would die during labour.
Overall I think that both sources help me to understand the effects of the depression. Source E is useful in showing how depression led to poor health and higher rates of death. I can see that the depression lead to poverty in Jarrow and this led to ill health. Source D shows me that the depression led to poverty. Source E then shows that the depression led to ill health and death. Both sources D and E were written by the Jarrow Public Health Committee, they would have researched their findings before reporting to the government. Source D backs up the statistical evidence in source E because source D shows poor hygiene and poverty which can relate to the high death rates and high infant mortality rates in source E. I think that source D is more limited than source E because source D only shows me a description of one house while source E shows me statistics comparing Jarrow and the National Average over the years.