The Great Depression

Causes of the Great Depression

No real consensus, still debated today.

Industries in trouble
Farming struggles
Consumers buying on credit
Uneven distribution of income
Bank Failures

Americas Sick
Economy
Huge Unemployment

25% unemployment (1933)

Pay reductions
Foreclosures - cant pay home loans

Bank Failures

Oct. 29, 1929 stock market crashes (Black Tuesday)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejjNMnIo3Fg
Loss of confidence in banking
Consumers not spending/not taking out loans
By 1933, 11,000 of 25,000 banks failed

Suffering in Cities
Shantytowns

Make-shift towns/shacks
Called Hoovervilles (after
President Hoover)

Soup Kitchens & Bread

Lines
Funded by charities/public
agencies
Lines up to a mile long

Racial Tensions Increase

African-American & Latino

unemployment rates higher
Lower pay
African-Americans faced
violence
Latinos deported

What did we do?

President Herbert Hoover

Blamed for Great Depression

Rugged Individualism
Government = encourage solutions, not
control them
Hawley Smoot Tariff 1930

The Bonus Army

20,000 WWI vets march
on Washington D.C.
Demand retirement
bonuses early
Removed by force
(gassed & shot at)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Elected President in 1932
Wanted reform
Concerned about poverty
& unemployment
Had polio - used
wheelchair & leg braces
Very compassionate
Hard working
Determined

Eleanor Roosevelt
Dedicated to humanitarian issues
Outspoken about controversial
issues
Child welfare
Housing reform
Equal rights for women & minoriIes

Very successful public speaker

She & FDR worked as a team

Suffering in Rural Areas

Farming Industry
Devastated
400,000 farms lost
300,000 transients (hoboes)

The Dust Bowl

Un-farmed land +
drought + extreme
winds = dust storms
Great Plains: Kansas,
Oklahoma, Texas, New
Mexico, Colorado
Families fall apart due
to stress
Huge migration to CA