The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1929-1939

CHAPTER 24

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

AP US History

“Mellon pulled the whistle,Hoover rang the bell,Wall Street gave the signal,And the country went to hell.”

THE NATION’S SICK ECONOMY A NEW DEAL FIGHTS THE DEPRESSION

Main Idea – As the prosperity of the 1920s ended, severe economic problems gripped the nation and led to the Great Depression. After becoming president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used government programs as part of his New Deal to combat the Depression.

THE BUSINESS CYCLE OF THE 20’S

PROSPERITY

1919 1929 1930 1933

HOOVER

FDR

DEPRESSION

RECESSION

THE WALL STREET CRASH

1929Sept. 24 Sept. 29 Oct. 24 Oct. 29

Stocks 400% in value

Black Tuesday“Sell at Any Price”

Black Thursday“Margin Calls”

Buying on Margin

THE RECESSION GETS WORSE

INCOME

WORKERSLAID OFF

MANUFACTURINGCUT-BACKS

DEMAND (INVENTORIES)

ECONOMICPROBLEMS

German Reichsmark

GLOBAL DEPRESSION

Smoot-Hawley Tariff (1930)• Second highest tariff in US history

1929 1932

Imports $1,334 million $390 million

Exports $2,341 million $784 million

World Trade decline 66% between 1929

and 1943

HOOVER & THE DEPRESSION

Hoover’s Philosophy “Rugged Individualism” Private Charities

YMCA, Salvation Army No Direct Aid to the

Unemployed Some Public Works

Hoover Dam Reconstruction Finance

Corporation Loans to Banks

TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS

REACTION TO HOOVER Poverty & Discontent

Communist Threat (Scottsboro Boys)

Bonus Army (1932)

HARD TIMES City Life

Shantytowns “Hoovervilles”

Farms Dust Bowl & “Okies”

Family Life Women as

Breadwinners Culture

Hollywood The Grapes of Wrath

(Steinbeck)

Margaret Bourke-WhiteBread Line during the Louisville flood, Kentucky

1937

Dorothea LangeDitched, Stalled, and Stranded San Joaquin Valley, California1935

“…I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it…”

Grant WoodsAmerican Gothic

Jacob LawrenceTombstones

Edward HopperNighthawks

Diego Garcia

Charles SheelerClassic Landscape

ECONOMIC TROUBLES ON THE HORIZON

Background: The prosperity of the 1920s was largely based on the use of credit – def. – consumers agreed to buy now and pay later for purchases Installment buying Buying on margin Over speculation

INSTALLMENT BUYING

def. - form of credit with monthly payments with interest

BUYING ON MARGIN

def. – buying too many stocks hoping to sell at a higher price in a short period of time, regardless of risk involved

OVER SPECULATION

• def.- paying only a small percentage of a stock’s price as a down payment and borrowing the rest to make a stock purchase

CAUSES OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Black Tuesday Hawley-Smoot Act

BLACK TUESDAY

October 29, 1929– the stock market crashed with 16.4 million shares of stock sold in one day, causing prices to collapse Prices of stocks fell

speculators left with huge debts that couldn’t be repaid to banks banks failed people lost their savings

BANKS FAILING

The Federal Reserve failed to prevent widespread collapse of the nation’s banking system as banks continued to fail through the early 1930s

HAWLEY-SMOOT ACT

Hawley-Smoot Act (1930) - High protective tariff resulted in retaliatory tariffs in other countries, which strangled international trade

FINANCIAL COLLAPSE

Great Depression “Hoovervilles” Farm foreclosures

UNEMPLOYMENT GRAPH

When was unemployment the highest?

Answer: 1933

GREAT DEPRESSION

Great Depression– def. – period from 1929 to 1940 in which the economy plummeted and unemployment skyrocketed, causing widespread hardship Business failures – 90,000

businesses went bankrupt Collapse of the financial

system - over 11,000 bank closings

Unemployment – 25% of American workers were unemployed by 1932

“HOOVERVILLES”

• “Hoovervilles”– def. - shacks and shantytowns of homeless people, named for President Hoover

President Hoover thought that private companies and volunteers should take care of the economy Did not act in the

beginning to try to counter act the depression

President Hoover

FARM FORECLOSURES

Farm Foreclosures– farmers lost their homes and lands and were forced to migrate across the country looking for work Dust Bowl “Okies”

DUST BOWL

Parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado that were hardest hit by draught and dust storms

DUST BOWL

Lasted 8 years Caused by poor agricultural practices

and years of sustained drought The winds of the Great Plains stirred up

the dust from the fields and blew it across the plains In 1932, 14 dust storms were recorded on the

Plains. In 1933, there were 38 storms. By 1934, it was estimated that 100 million

acres of farmland had lost all or most of the topsoil to the winds.

DUST BOWL

The Dust Bowl got its name after Black Sunday, April 14, 1935. The cloud that appeared on the horizon that Sunday was the

worst. Winds were clocked at 60 mph. Then it hit.

The simplest acts of life — breathing, eating a meal, taking a walk — were no longer simple.

Children wore dust masks to and from school, women hung wet sheets over windows in a futile attempt to stop the dirt, farmers watched helplessly as their crops blew away.

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm

Life during the Dust Bowl

“OKIES”

Okies: those who moved west to California from Oklahoma

These migrant workers/families lived in tents or out of their automobiles

UNDERSTANDING IMAGES

What feelings does this image give you?

What do you think to woman is feeling? How about the kids?

Describe the way they are dressed?

Migrant Stories

Migrant Mother Photo Video Clip

STEINBECK AND THE DUST BOWL

As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west-

from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land." 

AMERICANS GET A NEW DEAL

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) won the presidential election of 1932 Inaugural address –

rallied a frightened nation

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Fireside Chats – FDR’s radio addresses aimed at restoring American confidence

NEW DEAL

Relief Recovery Reform

RELIEF

Relief: measures that provided direct payment to people for immediate help

CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps)

TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)

WPA (Works Progress Administration)

CCC

Civilian Conservation Corps – provided jobs for young single males on conservation projects

TVA

Tennessee Valley Authority – provided jobs building dams to bring running water and electricity to poor regions in the South

WPA

Works Progress Administration – created as many jobs as quickly as possible in construction of airports, highways, and public buildings as well as professions such as art, music, and theater

RECOVERY

Recovery: programs designed to bring the nation out of the Depression over time

AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act)

NRA (National Recovery Administration)

AAA AND NRA

AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act) – aided farmers by regulating crop production so prices would rise

NRA (National Recovery Administration) – reformed banking practices and established fair codes of competition for businesses

REFORM

FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)

Wagner Act SSA (Social Security Act)

FDIC

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – protected bank deposits up to $5,000

What does it protect up to today?

WAGNER ACT

Wagner Act– defined unfair labor practices and established the National Labor Relations Board to settle disputes between employers and employees

SSA

Social Security Act – provided a pension for retired workers and their spouses and helped people with disabilities

INTERPRETING CARTOONS

Who are they main figures in the cartoon?

What are they pouring down the pump?

What is occurring as it is being pumped into the economy?

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NEW DEAL

The New Deal changed the role of government to a more active participant in solving problems

Public believed in the responsibility of the federal government to:1. deliver public

services2. intervene in the

economy3. act in ways to

promote the general welfare