se in the lower class. They had the opportunity to stay in school and were treated to some luxuries. The children of the upper-class families received an excellent education and were treated to many luxuries (Simmons 42-43). Along with a change in American family life, there was also an increase in poverty. The Great Depression was an intense time of poverty. The downfall of American businesses, the closing of banks, and the lowered employment contributed to this period of destitute. According to an old study, "26,000 American businesses collapsed; in 1931, 28,000 more met the same fate. And by the beginning of 1932, nearly 3,500 banks, holding billions of dollars in uninsured deposits, had gone under. Twelve million people were unemployed (nearly 25 percent of the workforce), and the real earnings for those still lucky enough to have jobs fell by a third" (Internet). This statistical evidence effectively illustrates the increase in poverty caused by the Great Depression.
             An additional result of the Great Depression was that President Hoover balanced his belief of "rugged individualism" with the economic necessities of the time by proposing direct action by the government. Hoover had only been in office for eight months when the stock market crashed. At first, he treated this financial disaster and a decline in employment and business that followed the Great Depression as a panic. According to The American Pageant "He was accused of saying, yet did not use these precise words, that prosperity was just around the corner" (Bailey 776).
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