“Every time we find solutions outside of government, we have not only strengthened

character, but we have preserved our sense of real government.”

~Herbert Hoover

Election of 1928

-Herbert Hoover

“Two cars in every garage”

• Republican candidate with little “public office” experience

-20’s marked a reign of prosperity

• Years of prosperity under Republicans Harding and Coolidge

-Hoover predicts the end of poverty

• Wins easy victory

• People happy with Republicans

“We in America are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than

ever before.”

Herbert Hoover, the secretary of commerce under Harding and

Coolidge, was a mining engineer from Iowa who had never fun for public office. Hoover, though, had one

major advantage: he could point to years of prosperity under

Republicans since 1920. He won an easy victory promising a “chicken in

every pot and two cars in every garage.”

Stock Market Crash

• Visible sign of prosperity

-Warning Signs

Speculation

• Buying stocks/bonds on chance of quick profit, ignoring risks

Buying on Margin

• Paying percentage of stock’s price as down payment, borrow the rest on credit

-Stock prices were inflated

• Stocks not reflecting companies’ worth – just paper

The American public thought the economy of the 1920s was booming

due to a skyrocketing Dow Jones Industrial Average, showing the

growth of the stock market to a high of 381 points. By 1929, 3% of the nation’s population owned stocks. Seeds of trouble were taking root:

people were engaging in speculation and buying on margin. With easy money available to investors, the unrestrained buying and selling

fueled the market’s upward spiral.

Stock Market Crash

-Oct 1929 prices begin to fall

• People afraid of losing profits, begin to sell stocks

-Oct 29, 1929 Black Tuesday Great Crash

• Mass-selling

• $30 billion lost in one day, sends economy downward

“It came with a speed and ferocity that left men dazed. The bottom simply fell

out of the market. From all over the country a torrent of selling orders poured onto the floor of the Stock

Exchange, and there were no buying orders to meet it.”

“In the strange way that news of a disaster spreads, the word of

the market collapse flashed through the city. By noon, great

crowds had gathered at the corner of Broad and Wall streets where the Stock Exchange faces

J.P. Morgan’s…

“The animal roar that rises from the floor of the Stock Exchange

and which on active days is plainly audible in the Street

outside, became louder, anguished, terrifying. The

streets were crammed with a mixed crowd—agonized little

speculators, walking aimlessly outdoors because they feared to face the ticker and the margin

clerk…

The market seemed like an insensate thing that was

wreaking a wild and pitiless revenge upon those who had

thought to master it.”

Causes of Depression

-Overproduction of goods

• Supply up, demand down, prices fall; no world markets

-Too much available credit

• American debt rises, less buying

-less consumption of goods

• Rising prices, same wages, debt

-farm surplus

• Too many farm goods, prices fall 40% from war days

Causes of Depression

-high tariffs

• Cut foreign market for goods

-no banking regulations

• Banks could not insure money

-Hawley-Smoot Tariff, 1930

• Highest ever, prevented other countries from buying our goods

-everything became a chain reaction

• Hits nearly every home in America, eventually the world

After Black Tuesday, many Americans rushed to the banks to withdraw the “real” money they had left there. Unfortunately, the banks did not

insure their customers’ deposits, and the banks quickly went bankrupt.

Most Americans lost everything they earned once the banks closed.

Hard Times Hit Home

-Rural areas

foreclosure of farms, food supply, Dust Bowl

• Lost farms due to debt; dust storms ruined crops, killed people

“[T]he air is just full of dirt coming, literally, for hundreds of miles. It sifts

into everything. After we wash the dishes and put them away, so much dust sifts into the cupboards we must wash

them again before the next meal…Newspapers say the deaths of many

babies and old people are attributed to breathing in so much dirt.”

~Dust Bowl Diary

During the 1920s, farmers from Texas to North Dakota had used tractors to break up the grasslands and plant millions of acres of new farmland. Plowing had removed the thick protective layer of prairie grasses. Farmers had then

exhausted the land through overproduction of crops, and the grasslands became unsuitable for farming. When the drought and winds began in the

early 1930s, little grass and few trees were left to hold the soil down. Wind scattered the topsoil, exposing sand and grit underneath. The dust traveled

hundreds of miles.

The region that was hardest hit, including parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado, came to be known as the Dust Bowl. Thousands

of farmers and sharecroppers left their land behind, packed up their families, and headed west, following Route 66, to California.

“The dust is something fierce. Sometimes it lets up enough so we can

see around; even the sun may shine for a little time, then we have a

frenzied time of cleaning, anticipating the comfort of a clean feeling once

more…

“Our faces look like coal miners’, our hair is gray and stiff with dirt and we grind dirt in our teeth. We have to

wash everything before we eat it and make it as snappy as possible…

“When we open the door, swirling whirlwinds of soil beat against us

unmercifully, and we are glad to go back inside and sit choking in the dirt…

“A lot of dirt is blowing now, but it’s not dangerous to be out in it. The dirt is all loose, any little wind will stir it,

and there will be no relief until we get rain. If it doesn’t come soon there will be lots of suffering. If we spit or blow our noses we get mud. We have quite

a little trouble with our chests. I understand a good many have

pneumonia.”

Hard Times Hit Home

-Cities

shantytowns, soup kitchens, breadlines

• Hoovervilles – junk shacks and; get food from charity

-Family Life

men on the move, hardships of women, health of children

• Men wandered searching for jobs (“hoboes”); teens leave to help families

-Social effects

more suicide, mental illness, dreams forsaken, ethics, hard work

“Men who have been sturdy and self-respecting workers can take

unemployment without flinching for a few weeks, a few months, even if

they have to see their families suffer; but it is different after a year,

two years…three years.”

Some men became so discouraged that they simply stopped trying.

Some even abandoned their families.

“Welcome to Hooverville”

“I’ve lived in cities for many months, broke, without help, too timid to get in bread lines. I’ve known many women to live like this until they simply faint in the street…shut up in the terror of her own misery.”

“Here were all these people living in old, rusted out car bodies…There were people living in shacks made of orange crates. One family with a whole lot

of kids were living in a piano box…People living in whatever they could junk together.”

~Shantytown visitor outside Oklahoma City

Many teenagers looked for a way out of the suffering. Hundreds of thousands of

teenage boys and some girls hopped aboard America’s

freight trains to zigzag the country in search of work,

adventure, and escape from poverty. These “wild boys” came from every section of the U.S., from every corner of society. They were the

sons of poor farmers, out-of-work miners, and wealth

parents who had lost everything. “Hoover

tourists,” as they were called, were eager to tour

America for free.

Hoover’s Resolve

-Rugged Individualism

• People should succeed through their own efforts, not the government

-created gov’t agency to help business recover

-RFC—Reconstruction Finance Corporation

-gave loans to businesses to prevent business failure

• Help businesses, they will give jobs and people will recover

-gave no direct relief to the people

• No cash payments or food given to the people by the government

-”Two families in every garage”

-Hoovervilles

“Mellon pulled the whistle, Hoover rang the bell, Wall Street gave the

signal, and the country went to hell.”

~Popular slogan of the early Depression

With his “rugged individualism” viewpoint, many Americans blamed

President Hoover for their vast economic losses and hardships during the Great Depression.

Hoover’s Resolve

-Bonus Army March on Washington

• Want bonus for WWI service (money for vets)

-Radicals begin to develop

The Bonus Army came to the nation’s capital to support the Patman Bill, which

authorized the government to pay a bonus to WWI veterans who had not

been compensated adequately for their wartime service. This bonus, which

Congress approved in 1924, was supposed to be paid out in 1945 in the

form of cash and a life insurance policy. The Patman Bill would pay that money

($500 per soldier) immediately.

In June, Congress voted down the Patman Bill. Hoover then called on the Bonus Army marchers to leave. Most did, but approximately 2,000 refused to

budge. Nervous that the angry group could become violent, President Hoover decided that the Bonus Army should be disbanded. On July 28, a force of 1,000 soldiers came to roust the veterans. In the course of the

operation, the infantry gassed more than 1,000 people. Two people were shot, and many were injured. Most Americans were stunned and outraged at

the government’s treatment of the veterans.

"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob, When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job. They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead, Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread? Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time. Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime? Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime; Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell, Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum, Half a million boots went slogging through Hell, And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time. Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell, Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum, Half a million boots went slogging through Hell, And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time. Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

“Happy Days are Here Again”

So long sad timesGo long bad timesWe are rid of you at last

Howdy gay timesCloudy gray timesYou are now a thing of the past

Happy days are here againThe skies above are clear againSo let's sing a song of cheer againHappy days are here again

Altogether shout it nowThere's no oneWho can doubt it nowSo let's tell the world about it nowHappy days are here again

Your cares and troubles are goneThere'll be no more from now onFrom now on ...

Happy days are here againThe skies above are clear againSo, Let's sing a song of cheer again

Happy timesHappy nightsHappy daysAre here again!

Election of 1932

-Franklin Roosevelt

Who was he originally running mates with? Governor of NY

• Battled unemployment and poverty with a “can-do” attitude

-Pledged a New Deal for the people

Help for the common man

• Gov. responsibility to help, not rugged individualism

-Democrats win great majority in Congress

• People dislike Hoover and Republican policies

-Hoover remain a lame duck for several months

20th Amendment changed the Inaugural date for the President and Congress to January instead of March

-Banking system was in a crisis

• Relief for needy, economic recovery, financial reform

Ready for a change, Americans elect President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

However, Roosevelt did not become President until March, which left Hoover in power until then (with

virtually no power). Roosevelt used this time to devise a plan of economic recovery, which he would introduce

to America as the “New Deal.”

The New Deal