The Great Depression in Utah

Colton Anderson

Utahs Diverse Heritage

History 2800

The Great Depression was the longest lasting economic fall in history. It
all started in October of 1929 when the stock market crashed, Utah was one of
the many states that were affected by this epic fall of the economy. One core part
of Utah that had been hit the hardest was employment. People had to figure out
how to survive without a paycheck, some were not even able to feed their
families for weeks at a time. Everyone went into a panic mode, just trying to
figure out how to get by. When the economy crashed people started to scavenge
for food, they began to go in survival mode. The mindset completely changed
about how to communicate amongst one another and they had to start thinking
how they could save not only themselves, but also how they would serve and
protect their family.
This was clearly the worst situation Utah has ever dealt with and statistics
can prove just that. 1In 1932 the wages for those who still had their jobs had
declined 45%. In 1933 the rate of unemployment in Utah was up to 38.5%, which
was the fourth highest in the nation. This time period was terrible for Utah
because towards the year 1933, 32% of the population was receiving some if not
all, part of their food, clothing, shelter, and other common needs from the
government.2 I cant imagine being in that type of situation knowing there is not a
single thing I could do for my family.
People who lived in the city were not the only ones hit by The Great
Depression; farmers seemed to be affected just as bad if not worse by this
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1
Utah History To Go, The Great Depression
2
History.com, The Great Depression

collapsing economy. Between the years of 1929 and 1933 the gross farm income
of Utah fell 60%. That is more than half of their income vanishing away. When
your gross income falls nearly 60% within four years it means you are pretty
much forced to sell your products for the lowest price on the market. The
difference between what they grew and what they raised upon the sale was slim
to none. Famers suffered year after year with the low prices they were receiving
for their products, barely breaking even. The farmers were considered lucky
enough to have made just enough profit to provide for their families and thats it.
When people started to lose their jobs in the city, they went back to working on
the farms. Little did the city folks know about the farm economy. It was falling just
as quick if not faster than the economy in the city. Soon they would have found
out about the falling economy within the farms, and then became even more
frightened as to what exactly they were going to do to provide for their families.
The steady decline of the economy in Utah caused for the marriage and
birth rates to drop and also the divorce rate went up considerably as well. Once
that started to happen women around the state started to join the work force,
even though they had a feeling they shouldnt try competing with men. But in
Utah, women who were single would get hired as a teacher over women that
were married. A bill was introduced in 1932 to the legislature that required all
married female state employees to resign. The stay at home women would follow
the old saying of, Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.3
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Utah History To Go, The Great Depression

Many families were unable to pay rent or make their mortgage payments
altogether, leading to them to be evicted from their homes. The homes and farms
were then put up for sale, to try and pay back taxes. This caused tension
between civilians and the police department, resulting in protests and riots.
Civilians were being arrested with brief jail time for direct rioting. Protests and
riots then became an epidemic. Along with tax protests, there were more
demonstrations in Salt Lake City. Three of them in the Spring of 1931 being;
Groups of more than one thousand unemployed men and women gathered on
the grounds of the City and County building, to hear speakers speak. Then
marched up main street to the State Capitol, carrying signs that read, We Want
Work, Not Charity, Organize or Starve, and We Want Milk for Our Children.4
Employment was scarce, in the late November of 1930 there were a
number of transients that came to Salt Lake City, approximately 500 men looking
for work had been picked up by officers from the police department. They were
sent away and told to look for work elsewhere. According to the Deseret News in
the late summer of 1933, hundreds of families were homeless and posted in
empty lots throughout the city.
It was said that people knew the hard times would pass and that jobs
would pick up and eventually people would prosper. Well, they would soon find
out that that was not the case and it was not getting better, but only getting
worse. There would be lines building of people down the street with empty
stomachs, and shivering bodies. Ranging from young children who should have
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Utah History To Go, The Great Depression

been in school to older men and women who are retired. Men and women would
be waiting for hours just to get a bowl of broth from private charities or churches
called soup kitchens. These charities began to pop up in the late 1920s due to
the major downfall of the economy. Soup Kitchens would usually get their food
for free from the food bank or they would get it elsewhere for a really cheap price.
The average amount of people they helped was between 1,500 and 3,000 people
per day. Groups like that who are willing to help feed the people in need are truly
remarkable.
Churches already had welfare programs before The Great Depression. In
the 1920s the relief society and bishopric general boards provided employment
for their storage warehouses as well as other ways to help the needy. During The
Great Depression, the churches were able to build based on those previous
foundations to help reduce the amount of people that were losing their jobs. The
effort of the church was basically to help people help themselves, which aided
them to become more independent. Church members would donate old
household items to help their stakes prosper. Also, the Granite Stake in Salt Lake
County put the unemployed to work on various stake projects, such as operating
a sewing shop where donated clothing was renovated, as well as securing food
for the needy through cooperative arrangements with nearby farmers.5 However
the church was impacted as well by The Great Depression, their main income
source dropped $1.6 million dollars in 1933 compared to 1924. This caused
many activities to lessen.
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5
LDS.org, The Church During The Great Depression

Franklin Roosevelt, the new president in 1931 was determined to make

effective changes during his presidency. He shed a new light of confidence and
optimism due to his program popularly known as the New Deal. Most Latter-day
Saints supported the New Deal, which introduced new types of social and
economic reform. It also represented the conclusion of a long-range trend toward
lessening abandonment of laissez-faire capitalism. Although, the church
leaders were afraid it would lead to a dole mentality for the Saints. President
Grant sadly acknowledged:
Many people have said, Well, others are
getting some (government relief), why should
not I get some of it?
I believe that there is a growing disposition
among the people to try to get something from
the government of the United States with little
hope of ever paying it back. I think this is all wrong.6
The church leaders did their best to guide the Saints, and also had them look to
scriptures for personal guidance as well. I believe that there are still people that
tend to take advantage of government programs. They probably still have the
mindset of what President Grant acknowledged back then.
Franklin Roosevelt was determined to make changes that would be
effective to the depression during his presidency. He once said during his
inaugural address to the nation The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. At
that moment in time people started to feel more optimistic about the rise with the
economy. President Roosevelts sure determination and confidence showed the
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LDS.org, The Church during The Great Depression

American people they had a good leader to follow and would be able to have
hope. Roosevelt moved quickly with making decisions as he started the new deal
as soon as he entered the office.
What was really inspiring about the new deal was the quickness in how it
accomplished what would have taken years to complete. The New Deal would
help raise unemployment, agriculture, and social security almost to the point
where they would soon be out of depression. Now, The New Deal certainly did
help the economy for the nation, but what exactly helped Utah get out of this
nasty economy it was in?
The leaders of Utah have known and recognized that the importance to a
healthy economy is federal spending. You would have to spend a lump some of
money on a certain part of the nation in order to achieve a healthy economy.
Throughout the 1930s Utah was very unsuccessful with securing much federal
investments inside the state. The government of Utah would begin to struggle
and have to configure a variety of paths to travel down with getting through that
decade from 1930 to 1940. Due to all of the things happening inside the state
during the 1930s, that decade would soon to act as a favor in a sense, more or
less a blessing in disguise for Utah.
One of the paths the government of Utah decided to go down started
when the nation began to respond to the crisis in Europe. That is what helped
Utah aid to the nation in World War II. The starting of the war would then play a
big part and affect the political and cultural life of the state. The changes began

to happen in the late 1930s to the beginning of the 1940s. Prior to shots being
fired at Pearl Harbor, Utah would begin to experience exponential growth due to
its spending in the defenses to try and transform the society.
Utah had been economically devastated during
the 1930s; in the late 1930s Utah still had from
30 to 60 percent more people on federal relief
projects--WPA, CCC, or some other program
than the national average.7
Due to the crisis in Europe, the nation began to rearm which then led Utah
to revitalize the base camp known as Fort Douglas. The base camp was
relatively small due to it only being storage for the storage of ammunition. It was
established in 1921, due to its role for only being a storage caused the base
camp to slow down during The Great Depression.
When the dawn of World War II was upon them, Fort Douglas was soon
able to grow and eventually transform into a manufacturing, storage, and
shipping facility for the whole west coast of the United States. There was also
another base similar to Fort Douglas that was called Hill Field; it was established
in 1940 and the Army Air Corps had influenced the making of Hill Field. Hill Field
blossomed into a major repair and supply depot for the Army Air Forces. This
was only the beginning of the base. It soon employed 15,000 civilians, 6,000
military, and several thousand POWs making it the largest employer in the state.
With the state rapidly coming out of the economical depression, it would soon be
the state that held a total of fourteen military operations during the war. The
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History To Go, World War II in Utah

military operations alone created more than 40,000 jobs for citizens of Utah, and
more than half of them were employed at Hill Field. This helped Utah make a big
jump towards getting out of the depression they were in.
Utah, the state that is rich in natural resources is what began to evolve as
the state was starting to grow out of the depression. Geneva Steel Works is the
core company that assisted Utah and their industrial expansion. Nearly two-thirds
of the money was made accessible for Utah to build new facilities as well as
reopen the processing plants that had been closed down due to the depression.
Along with the processing plants, mines were reopened too, for minerals of all
sorts. The abilities of these plants were expanded and because of the war,
firearms widened throughout, which resulted in giving back thousands of jobs to
the people.
Utah and its population have been deeply affected by The Great
Depression. Life before the depression was great, people were having the time of
their lives. Enjoying the jazz music culture, I mean life was euphoric in a sense
for Utahns. Until it all came to a screeching halt and everyone started to lose
their jobs, everything was becoming catastrophic. Life in Utah would never be the
same in before The Great Depression and World War II. These events truly
changed the course of history and from that point on the simple life was no
longer simple.

Bibliography
https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/soc_sec/hgreat.htm

https://www.lds.org/manual/church-history-in-the-fulness-of-times-studentmanual/chapter-thirty-nine-the-church-during-the-great-depression?lang=eng

http://www.history.com/topics/great-depression

http://www.lewiston-ut.org/lewistonhistory/LewHistDepression.html

http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/from_war_to_war/thegreatdepression.h
tml

http://www.historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/from_war_to_war/worldwar2inuta
h.html

https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/soc_sec/hgreat.htm

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