The Elites
During the Great Depression there were big differences between the responses upper and lower class individuals had to the crisis. A lot of the rich people felt no impact at all and were oblivious to the suffering of others. Many of the richest people in America lost money. When the stock market crashed, the upper class as a whole still retained much of the wealth they had held before the Depression. In most cases, they also didn’t suffer from unemployment. During this time, many began to flaunt their wealth more than ever. The richest one percent of Americans owned over a third of all American assets. There were people who got rich during the Great Depression, such as Michael J. Cullen the supermarket pioneer, Charles Darrow the creator of the Monopoly game, and film star James Cagney. The elites were not affected by the problems that the Great Depression brought.
|