the great depression what it was, what caused it and who was involved
TRANSCRIPT
The Great Depression What it was, what caused it and who was involved
Major Causes:
Unequal distribution of wealth and credit based society
Supply and demand of goods became unstable
War debt
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Dust Bowl
The 1920s
New or newly accessible products
Refrigerators, radios, phonographs, affordable cars, ready-to-wear clothes, packaged foods, washing machines
Big arts movement (The Harlem Renaissance)
Cultural changes (women could vote, the Great Migration)
Prohibition (1919-1934)
Unequal Distribution of Wealth
World War I ended in 1918
Americans entered a new era of social change and rampant consumerism
America became able to mass-produce products
While the rich got much richer, the poor remained poor
Credit and Poverty
Buying things on credit became common place in the United States.
For the first time families who could not afford the new luxuries could still buy them.
Poor Americans were forced to use credit or go without because their wages remained stagnant
Supply and Demand
America uses new technologies to mass-produce goods.
Farmers take advantage of fertile years to bring in abundant crops, but they ruined the land in the process.
Meanwhile, poorer Americans are finding it hard to buy these goods and food.
The U.S. had previously been able to export some of these goods to Europe but…
War Debt
Due to the aftermath of World War I, Europe can not afford to buy American goods
This is compounded by new higher taxes that the U.S. places on imports and exports.
Farming
America, unable to sell their crops to Europe decide to stockpile them instead.
This causes too much supply and not enough demand.
The price of crops lower significantly
Farmers who were poor to begin with are now even poorer
Black Tuesday
October 29th 1929 www.time.com
The Stock Market Crash
Remember how everyone was buying things on credit?
The Stock Market crashes in 1929 which eventually causes banks to fail
People can no longer afford to pay their rent or keep any of the luxuries they bought on credit
The Crash http://youtu.be/nyAZGqFtVjw?t=1m15s
The Dust Bowl
Farming isn’t as simple as planting a seed and waiting for it to grow.
For land to continue to be productive it needs periods of rest to lie fallow and recover from the loss of minerals
The Great Plains were so fertile partially because they had gone untouched for years and the strong roots of the prairie grasses held it in place
Over farming makes the topsoil weak and dry.
A drought and ensuing windstorms causes the dusty topsoil to blow away, leaving the lands unusable for farming
The Dust Bowl
the Dust Bowl
http://youtu.be/MYOmjQO_UMw
Hoovervilles
Hoovervilles
http://youtu.be/hbEVeKIghCk
Sources
http://www.loc.gov/index.html
http://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/Dawes
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3396
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/depwwii/depress/
http://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties