When tragedy strikes, the members of our great country do anything but sit and watch. This is characteristic of the American peoples’ response to the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The American people reacted with resourcefulness, with optimism, and with unity.
America’s resourcefulness is best captured in Robert Hastings’ memoir, “Digging In”. Hastings delves into his childhood and reveals his life during these hard times. His family is able to get by because his Dad is willing to take any job. The memoirist’s family has to “cut back on everything possible” to get by. Every dollar is stretched as far as possible. Another key point that the memoirist stresses is all the things his family gets by without. Things such as “soft drinks, potato chips, and snacks” they do not have; all of which we take for granted today.…show more content… His family finds more than 10 ways to reuse cotton cloths. Just one cotton cloth could be used for “a dish cloth, wash cloth, dust cloth, shoe-shining cloth, window-washing cloth, to scrub and wax floors, make bandages, make quilt pieces, make kite tails, or to tie boxes and papers together.” The memoirist’s family truly knows what it means to be a penny pincher. They truly know what it’s like to live with only the things they need. Along with resourcefulness, America asserted a great deal of optimism during the Depression. This sense of confidence is best exhibited by Karen Hesse’s poem, “Debts”. The poet’s father seems to have a large capacity of confidence in the fact that it will rain. He keeps on saying, “It’s sure to rain soon.” He keeps on believing. Believing that enough rain will come to grow wheat. Even when the poet’s mother tries to get the poet’s father to revise his opinion, he never stops