The Great Depression

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The Great Depression

• Chapter 14 Notes

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Black Tuesday
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Warning Signs

• Farm crisis
• Consumers over reliance on credit
• Stock speculation
• Bull market
• Bear market
• Margin buying

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New York City Stock Exchange
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Black Thursday

• October 24, 1929
• Lg. no. of investors (nervous about rising
  interest rates) began rapidly selling stocks
• Stock prices dropped automatically
• Huge sell off w/ few buyers
• Black Tuesday--more stocks dumped prices dropped
  more loans called in people go bankrupt

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Wall Street
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At high noon on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929,
all eyes on Wall Street were turned imploringly
to the House of Morgan.
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Great Depression Begins

• Banks failed
• Heavy defaults, margin calls massive w/drawals
  (bank runs)
• Businesses closed
• Mass unemployment (25 or more)

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Great Depression Begins

• Prices dropped for farm products
• Farms lost to banks

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(Continued)

• Income gap
• Avg. income drops
• Reduced purchasing power
• Consumer debt
• Global depression
• Banks call in European war loans
• cant export (European depression)
• Smoot-Hawley Tariff (highest in U.S. history)

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Hardships

• Unemployment or reduced wages
• Immigration decreased
• Migrants returned to Mexico
• Increased discrimination

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Hardships

• Malnutrition--esp. in children
• Homelessness
• Shantytowns (Hoovervilles)
• Hoboes

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Families

• Relatives helped one another
• Marriage rate fell
• Birthrates decline
• Suicide rose 28 (1929-1932)
• Feelings of guilt shame

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The Dust Bowl, 1931
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The Dust Bowl

• 1931 began several years of drought
• Poor farming practices left land w/out grass

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Wind storms blew away topsoil (sometimes as far
as Atlantic Coast)
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Dust Bowl Region OK, KS, CO, NM, TX
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The Dust Bowl

• Many people migrate west along Rt 66 to CA
  (promised land)

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Efforts to help poor

• Salvation Army, gov. agencies, religious groups
• Mutualistas
• Bread lines
• Rent parties
• Community rice barrels

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Unemployment Offices
Selling Apples
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Breadlines and Soup Kitchens
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Hoovervilles
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Pop Culture

• Entertainment--means of escape
• Movies
• gangsters, strong women, cartoons
• Radio
• Woodie Guthrie
• Literature
• John Stienbeck

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Theories/Solutions

• Business Cycle--regular ups downs of business
  in a free enterprise system
• President Hoover--felt people should help
  themselves not the govt.
• Rugged individualism
• Associative state

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Hoover Administration
Program Actions Effects
Public Works Program Public construction projects (Boulder Dam) Failed to have much effect
Federal Farm Loan Board Loans, co-ops, bought surplus goods Helped some but didnt end crisis
Reconstruction Finance Corp. Loaned money to industry Helped some avoid bankruptcy
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Public response to Hoover

• Protests
• Communists, Socialists
• Scottsboro Trial
• Bonus Army
• Legal action

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Bonus Army
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Scottsboro Boys
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Election of 1932

• Rep Herbert Hoover
• Dem Franklin D. Roosevelt

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