The Great Depression

1
Chapter 13

• The Great Depression

2
Section 1

• The Crash and Its Aftermath

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October 24, 1929 New York Stock Exchange Crashes

• Stocksa share in business ownership
• Price and value constantly fluctuates
• People began to sell their stocks
• Tuesday, October 29 Black Tuesday
• Over 30 billion was lost in the last week of
  Oct. 1929

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Why Did the Crash Occur?

• Stock Market Speculation
• Speculationa risky business venture involving
  buying or selling property in the hope of making
  a large, quick profit
• Marginto pay only a fraction of a stocks value
  and borrow the rest of the money for the stocks
• If the loan was not repaid, the stockbroker
  gained ownership of the stock
• Stocks made large gains between 1927 and 1929

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The Beginning of the End

• By 1929, brokers lent out 6 billion
• As stock prices fell in the fall of 1929, brokers
  wanted the loans repaid
• Loans could not be repaid so brokers sold the
  stocks
• Prices of major stock fell 75
• Banks had lent to stockbrokers and banks
  wanted to be repaid
• Brokers did not have the to repay so banks
  took out of customers savings deposits
• Now the common person had no

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The Onset of the Depression

• Depressiona period of extended and severe
  decline in a nations economy, marked by low
  production and high unemployment
• Unemploymentthe condition of being out of work
• Depression spread throughout the world

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The Causes of the Great Depression

• Depressed Farms and Industries
• In the 1920s, farming, textile, mining,
  railroad, automobile, construction industries all
  declined
• Wages dropped and/or laid workers off
• People couldnt afford manufactured goods

• Wealth Distribution
• Growing gap in wealth between rich people and
  ordinary people

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The Causes of the Great Depression (cont.)

• Monetary Policy
• Inept monetary policy
• Supply of money in circulation was not large
  enough to allow the economy to bounce back

• Decline in Foreign Trade
• Less international trade
• High tariffs on foreign goods

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Hoovers Response

• Initial Reaction to the Depression
• Hoover was president 1929-1933
• People had less faith in the economy which hurt
  the chance for recovery
• Agricultural Marketing Act
• Farm Boardlent money to farmers to help them set
  up cooperative marketing associations

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The Depression Deepens

• 193232,000 businesses folded
• 1929average family income was 3,200
• 19351,600
• 1932unemployment was 25
• Growing poverty and hardships
• Charity funds became inadequate

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Too Little Too Late

• Reconstruction Finance Corporation
• Feb. 1932
• Largest federal program of economic aid
• 2 billion

• Emergency Relief Act
• July 1932
• Additional 300 million to state governments for
  unemployment relief

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Mounting Protests

• Resentment grew as the Depression continued
• Veterans of the Great War (WWI)
• Traveled from Portland, Oregon to D.C.
• 1932
• 17,000 travelers
• Wanted advancement payments
• July 28, Hoover sent the Army to clear the
  veterans from the federal buildings
• 100 people injured

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The Election of 1932

• Hoover was the Republican candidate
• Franklin D. Roosevelt was the Democratic
  candidate
• FDR won by a landslide

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Section 2

• The Dream on Hold

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Dust Storms

• April 14, 1935
• Biggest Dust Bowl
• Great Plains
• 1932-1939
• Dust storms throughout Great Plains
• Dakotas, NE, KS, OK, NM, eastern CO, TX Panhandle

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On the Farms

• Farmers received low prices for crops
• Thousands of farmers lost their lands
• Okies were Great Plains farmers
• Foreclosurethe legal procedure for reclaiming a
  piece of property when the buyer is unable to
  keep up the mortgage payments
• Penny auctionssale of property for pennies to
  friends who then return the property later

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• Migration of the Okies
• Okies drifted anywhere they might find a job
• CA
• Farm owners lowered wages
• Okies lived on the outskirts of farm towns

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• Tenant Farmers
• Most lived in the South
• African Americans
• Did not own land they farmed
• Evicted from the farms
• Tenant farmers had to look for work

• Mexican American Workers
• Discriminated against
• Labeled illegal aliens (had no right to live or
  work in the U.S.A.)
• CA, TX, southwest U.S.A.
• City officials often wanted to send all people of
  Mexican descent back to Mexico
• Repatriationreturn to a persons country of
  birth or citizenship

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In the City

• 1933, average of 25 people were unemployed
• Buffalo 30
• Chicago and Cleveland 50
• Toledo 80
• Beggars and panhandling
• Absence of activity

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Unemployed Workers

• Factory owners laid off workers and/or reduced
  wages
• Many paid workers were no better off than those
  who received aid from the government
• Moved in with relatives

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Hoovervilles and the Homeless

• Hoovervilles
• Makeshift cities on the fringes of metropolitan
  areas
• 2 million lived in Hoovervilles
• Garbage scraps for foods
• Helping others became part of life

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The Better-Off

• Some landlords let unemployed tenants stay for
  free
• Tenants/landlords shared food
• Most of the wealthy before the Depression were
  able to make ends meet
• Live a comfortable life but not as luxurious
• Some people bought stocks for low prices
• Most people lost and material possessions
  but even worse was the loss of hope and pride

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In the Family

• The father lost status and self-esteem
• Fathers no longer could support their families
• The Womens World
• Women suffered less upheaval
• Economizing kept families from starvation
• Revived traditional home crafts (canning veggies,
  drying food, sewing clothes)
• Started home businesses (laundry, baking goods,
  etc.)

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The Womens World (cont.)

• Jobs outside the home continued (retail sales,
  clerical work, etc.)
• Many job opportunities remained open to women
  during the Great Depression

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Growing Up in the Thirties

• Some families often lost their fathers
• Became hoboes and traveled across the U.S.A. in
  trains (hobo camps formed)
• Some families grew closer together
• Stronger bonds
• Inner strength

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• The Great Depression was a time of psychological
  and spiritual depression as well as economic
  depression.
• There was a lack of hope and faith in the future.

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Section 3

• Life During the Depression

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Gone With the Wind Smashes Sales Records

• Novel by Margaret Mitchell
• Instant success
• During and after the Civil War
• Readers momentarily escaped from their own
  troubled time
• 1937, won Pulitzer Prize
• 1939, made into a movie

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The Car Craze Continues

• Automobiles gave people a sense they could
  physically escape their problems
• Status symbola possession thought to reflect a
  persons wealth, prestige, or superior position
  in society

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The Car Craze Continues (cont.)

• Cars for Show
• Cars were status symbols
• Wealthy kept cars during Depression

• On the Move
• 2 lane roads across the U.S.A.
• Tourism was 3rd largest industry
• Trailers
• Automobile industry grew
• Early 1930s, over 1/2 of U.S.A. families owned a
  car

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Escape From Household Drudgery

• Electricity spread
• Market for household appliances grew
• Refrigerator, washing machines, electric iron
• Eased burdensome household chores

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Escape Through Entertainment

• The Silver Screen
• Glitz and glamour
• Black and white
• Color-film later in 1930s
• Gone With the Wind
• mid-1930s, average week 60-90 million people saw
  movies

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The Silver Screen (cont.)

• Talkies
• Movies with sound
• Early 1930s
• Often times movies were not smooth
• Words and movement did not match up

• Musicals
• Dancing
• Singing
• Singing
• Music
• All put together for one show

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The Golden Age of Radio

• Radio was an important piece of furniture
• By end of 1930s, 30 million people owned a radio
• Family entertainment
• Form of escape from the Depression

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The Golden Age of Radio (cont.)

• Mass mediathe methods by which information and
  entertainment are transmitted to large numbers of
  people
• Newspaper
• Television
• Radio
• magazines

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Voices That Would Not be Stilled

• The Mirror of Lit.
• Wrote about the mass struggles of people
• Struggles of ind.
• Evaluated effect. Of society
• John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath)
• John Dos Passos

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Statements in the Arts

• Artists called for social change
• Show bleakness of Depression Era
• Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood
• Playwrights and theater directors
• Visions for a just world
• Documentary photograph
• U.S. stripped of hopes and dreams during the
  Depression