the effects of the Depression upon the people of Jarrow. I think that the sources are helpful and this is what I am going to prove in this essay.

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In this essay I am looking into how useful Sources D and E are in helping me to show the effects of the Depression upon the people of Jarrow. I think that the sources are helpful and this is what I am going to prove in this essay.

First looking at source D which is part of a report from the Jarrow Public Health Committee and was published in 1933. At this time something called the "Means Test" was in place, the means test was where if taxes could not be paid then pieces of furniture or in fact any possessions could be taken off you in order to pay this. You would have had someone look around your house to see if anything could be used to pay off your debt, for example, if their were 4 people living in a flat and that family had 6 chairs, 2 of these would be taken to be sold to help with the payments. The report describes a very run-down and dingy house, the origin of the source is clear (It is a Jarrow Health Committee report therefore it would probably have been reliable), the purpose of this report was probably because every time a health check was carried out a report would have had to been published to show what was found. I think this source is useful to show the effects of the depression upon the people of Jarrow because it shows us exactly what this family lived like and it was not a very pleasant description. For example, "There is a broken sofa, a wooden table, two old plain chairs and a cot.. A family of seven lives here." this shows me that the house would have been crowded and was maybe struggling with money as their sofa was broken and there didn't seen to be enough furniture for a family of seven. But we do not know for sure that everyone's house was in this state in Jarrow but other than this I think by looking into the nature, origin and purpose of the source I think it is reliable and helps to show me the effects of the depression as it shows me the living conditions of a certain family. Therefore from source D I can gather that the effects were that it forced some people to live in unsanitary conditions and that money was a struggle especially for big families.
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Source D is not useful in the way that we do not know if this was the condition of every house in Jarrow at that time or whether this house was just one example of bad living conditions. The report may just have been published to show the state of this certain house but we do not know this for certain. There is no evidence to show us whether or not this was a case which didn't happen often so therefore we cannot gather any more information on the effects of the depression from this.

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