The reason as to why the majority of the American people were under the poverty line was because of a number of reasons. The people who worked in the old industries like coal miners, ship builders and textile workers. Since the American industry stopped used less coal, it began to use oil and electricity and so there was less of a demand for coal, as a result prices fell rock bottom. Textile workers also found it hard to sell their produce, as there were new types of materials, which were invented such as artificial fibres and synthetic fibres, which were less itchy, and cheaper. Due to this competition, the workers in these industries received low wages and had a poor standard of living. The types of people who were probably the poorest were the Native Indians as they lived on special reserves. A government report of 1928 showed that the reservations land was so poor that it was impossible to scrape a living from it. Apart from the Native Indians, the people who were hit the hardest were the farmers especially sharecroppers. The reason for this was because of the fact that agriculture began to overproduce. When the farmers began to overproduce, the price of their crop fell and they entered poverty and a state of depression. The whole idea of being a sharecropper is that you grow only one crop and whatever money the crop made, you got part of it. However if boll weevil attacked your crop then you would have nothing to sell and get no income.
As some farmers only had one crop like cotton, it destroyed their entire harvest and they got no income whatsoever and suffered as a result of this. However, fruit farmers did benefit from the boom of the 1920’s. They were able to benefit from the growing demand for fresh produce and were among the best-paid groups in the country.
Theses times were particularly hard for the black farmers in the South due to the jobs they had and their position in society. The factor that made it even worse for the blacks was the fact that they were made scapegoats and were targets of racial hatred by the whites who thought they were superior over any non-white. This proves the point that whites were backward thinking and were very traditional when dealing in these types of matters. As a result of this, racist organisations emerged whose sole purpose was to terrorise the blacks. One organisation in particular was the Ku Klux Klan who dressed in white robes with long white pointed hoods. These people would do things such as, lynch blacks, murders and crucify them on crosses while burning them. The blacks in the south were kept under a permanent state of poverty and disadvantage a number of restrictions, which are known as the ‘Jim Crow’ laws. These ensured that the blacks were separated from the white people. However the blacks that lived in the northern cities did not face this kind discrimination and violence, but were still badly affected by the racism of American society as they always got the lowest paid jobs and lived in the poorest housing.
In conclusion, not all Americans benefited from the boom of the 1920’s. The people who were the hardest hit were the ordinary farmers, blacks and worst hit of all were the Native Americans. While the 40% of the population where enjoying the Boom years, the majority of 60% remained below the poverty line constantly experiencing hardships.
