Why Did So Many Fathers Leave Home During the Great Depression?

In the Great Depression, a great many American fathers left home. Some went looking for work and never came back. Some simply walked out, in what people called the poor man's divorce. This is the true story of why, and of the families they left behind. ☕ Enjoying these stories? You can support the channel here: https://buymeacoffee.com/thenickleys Johnny Cash's earliest memory is his father jumping off a moving freight train into the ditch in front of their house in Arkansas. In New York, a Yiddish newspaper printed the faces of missing husbands in rows, like wanted posters. A Buffalo charity told its workers to help widows with both hands and deserted wives with only one. And a new law in 1935 drew a hard line between a father who was gone and a father who was only out of work. With the real voices of Catherine and Fred Henley (the Bronx) and Afton Allen (Utah), who lived it. CHAPTERS 0:00 Johnny Cash's Father 0:52 Gone to Look for Work 4:22 The Poor Man's Divorce 7:18 The Gallery of Missing Men 9:40 Both Hands, One Hand 12:55 Continued Absence 16:57 Coming Home Was there a father in your family who went looking for work one winter and was gone a long time? Did he come back? Tell us in the comments. Somebody should write their names down. SOURCES Johnny Cash with Patrick Carr, Cash: The Autobiography (1997), ch. 1; UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture, "Johnny Cash: Arkansas Icon." John N. Webb, The Transient Unemployed (WPA, 1935); Webb and Malcolm Brown, Migrant Families (WPA, 1938). U.S. Census Bureau, Sixteenth Census (1940): Families, Types of Families (1943); The Labor Force: Employment and Family Characteristics of Women (1943). National Center for Health Statistics, 100 Years of Marriage and Divorce Statistics, 1867-1967 (1973). Robert S. Lynd and Helen M. Lynd, Middletown in Transition (1937). Joanna C. Colcord, Broken Homes: A Study of Family Desertion and Its Social Treatment (Russell Sage Foundation, 1919). Frederic Almy, Relief: A Primer for the Family Rehabilitation Work of the Buffalo Charity Organization Society (1910). Mirra Komarovsky, The Unemployed Man and His Family (1940). Committee on Economic Security, Social Security in America (1937); FERA, Unemployment Relief Census, October 1933. Social Security Act of 1935 (49 Stat. 620); Savilla M. Simons, Social Security Bulletin 9:7 (1946). YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, "Runaway Husbands, Desperate Families: The Story of the National Desertion Bureau." Errol Lincoln Uys, Riding the Rails archive (Mrs. Trout; Harvey Baker). Woody Guthrie Center; PBS American Masters (Woody Guthrie timeline). Railway Signaling (1940); Ian Savage, "Trespassing on the Railroad" (2007). VOICES Catherine Conroy Henley and Fred Henley, Thanksgiving 1991 family video, filmed by Bernard Harrington (YouTube: starwipestudios). Afton Allen, interviewed April 7, 1996 by her great-grandson (YouTube: Good Daddy, "Great Depression Interview with Afton Allen"). PICTURES AND FILM Library of Congress Prints & Photographs (Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information; New York World-Telegram & Sun); National Archives. Forverts "Gallery of Missing Men": courtesy of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Seattle, Second and Pike, 1934; Streetcars at Second and Pike, 1934; Hooverville on the Seattle tideflats, 1933: Seattle Municipal Archives, CC BY 2.0. "Greetings from Muncie, Indiana" and "Greetings from Salt Lake City" postcards: Steve Shook, CC BY 2.0. Films (public domain, via the Internet Archive / Prelinger Archives / National Archives): The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936), The River (1937), The Land (1942), Hands (1934), We Work Again (1937), Work Pays America (1937), A Nationwide System of Parks (1939), A Great Railroad at Work (1942), Millions of Us (1936), Danger Lights (1930), Beggars of Life (1928), Ranch Party (1957, Johnny Cash). SOUND Wall clock, card catalog, typewriter and rotary printing press: Work With Sounds (Technical Museum of Slovenia; La Fonderie; Konrad Gutkowski), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. MUSIC Storyblocks. Period records (public domain, Internet Archive Great 78 Project): There's a Long, Long Trail (Royal Cremona Orchestra, 1916); Home Sweet Home / My Old Kentucky Home (Jules Levy Jr.'s Brass Quartet, 1921). #AmericanHistory #nostalgia #greatdepression