Consequences of The Great Depression

Working on behalf of others is questionable. Some people may think it’s fine while others do not. Some examples are “Migrant Mother” by Dorothea Lange, the documentary “girl rising”, and Jacob Riis the Photographer. Yes it is fair to exploit a few people for many because it will help the few people that need it.

I feel like it is fine to do work on behalf of others because some of the people can’t get can’t get their voice to be heard. Dorothea Lange during the great depression took pictures of a migrant mother named Florence Owens Thompson. The pictures showed the mother with her starving children and another picture showed her feeding her baby. Florence Owens Thompson was 32 years old. She owned a small tent and a car. She had sold her tent to buy food for her husband, children and herself. Dorothea Lange’s photographs showed consequences of the Great Depression. Owens Thompson was a pea picker and traveled back and forth from California to Arizona to keep stable work. This was the only way she could feed her family.

Many people may say that it is not fair to exploit their privacy but what Dorothea Lange and Jacob Riis did helped the people by getting pictures out there and showing the environment they’re living in. Jacob Riis documented the lower parts of New York. He wanted the higher end people to see what the lower end we’re living in and how bad they we’re living. He wanted to give a voice to the poor immigrants. Riis also wanted to change the environment that they we’re living. In one of his Photographs it shows three little boys sleeping together because it is cold and they were trying to survive. Riis wrote a book called “How the other half lives.” The book had photographs and descriptions of the immigrants living in poverty. The book later became a bestseller. The book helped open peoples eyes to the poor living in New York. In another photograph of Jacob Riis it shows a couple kids in an orphanage praying.

In “Girl Rising” they introduced a few girls living in the poor. Most of the girls couldn’t go to school because they didn’t have money. One of the girls named “Wadley” went to school even after the teacher told her to leave because she didn’t pay for school. Wadley was eight years old and was from Haiti. An earthquake hit Haiti in 2010 and destroy her school but that did not stop her from wanting to learn. Wadley loved school and would do anything to be in school. Wadley is now in the sixth grade and is a top student in her class. Her favorite subject is science and likes math too. Her dream is to become a doctor. The girl rising crew helped wadley and she is now doing better than before.

It is sad to see poor people living in a poor environment but getting it out to the world would make people help the poor live better. It is not Jacob Riis’s, Dorothea Lange’s, or the “girl rising” crew’s fault on anything. They’re intentions on all of this we’re to help the ones in need. The struggling people’s voices needed to be heard, it was the only way to find a better way to live. Some people may disagree with what I think but it was the only way to get help back in those days especially during the Great Depression. Some people may also argue saying that the people in the videos and photographs need their own privacy but what they don’t realize is that they also need help.

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