When I was in Philadelphia during the Depression in 1930 or '31, I got a very sad job as a night watchman in a garage. The cars in the garage had been abandoned by their owners, since they had lost their jobs and couldn't keep up the payments.
If you look at the history of the U.S., we were an empire long before we were a nation.
I was the seventh of nine children. When you come from that far down you have to struggle to survive.