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The Great Depression1929-1939

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GD• Describe what you

see in this picture. What is happening here?

• What is unusual about the family in this picture?

• What reasons can you think of for why they are in this situation?

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I. Life Before the Great Depression: The Gilded Age during the Roaring 1920s.

• Business Boom

• First shopping mall built

• First fast food chain, A&W Root Beer

• Appliances all the rage—radios, washing machines, telephones, cars

• Companies spend a lot of money on advertising in 1927

• Ford built his automobile empire

• People began to buy things on credit

• Conspicuous Consumption was going strong.

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II. The Economy of the Late 1920s

• Great gap in income

• 200 large companies controlled 49% of all American industry

• Too many goods, not enough demand

• Farm prices fell after WWI

• Farmers not able to repay their debts

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III. What were the causes of the Great Depression?

1. Natural Disaster: The Dust Bowl

2. Bad loans and investments: people borrowed money into stocks

3. Bad Laws: Poor Government Policies, didn’t protect the people and their money. Sided with big business or there were no laws.

4. No Confidence in the Future and unemployement: once people started losing jobs and $ - no one spent $ or hired people

5. Gap between rich and poor

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1. Natural Disaster: The Dust Bowl

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A Dust Storm in Eastern Colorado

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Another Dust Storm

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A father and his two sons seek shelter from a dust storm

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Sand covering a farm after a dust storm

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An abandoned farm in Kansas.

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A collage of newspaper headlines from the Dust Bowl

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A man in the midst of a dust storm

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The Dust Bowl Facts• Where was it? • What Caused it?

• The Great Plains region—N. & S. Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas Oklahoma and northern Texas

• Farmers plow the plains, eliminating the protective layer of grass

• Wheat replaces grass—tractors make it much easier• Severe drought• High winds• Layers of top soil blown away, leaving dunes of grit and sand

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2. Bad Loans and Investments: caused the Stock Market to crash• Stocks hit all-time highs in September of 1929• In October, stocks began to fall• Ex. General Electric stocks bought for $400 sold for

$283• Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 —16.4 million

shares sold, compared to average of 4 million• This collapse of the stock market is known as the

Great Crash

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2.1 Why did the market crash?

1. Many people bought stocks on margin—like a loan

2. Speculation - gambled on prices going up.

3. Companies lied about their profits

4. Presidents believed in laissez faire—no control on businesses

5. Stock market was not regulated by government

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3. Bad laws: Government Mess Ups

• People had no confidence in the government

• President Hoover and his non-involvement

• Hawley-Smoot tarriff - import tax was the highest ever, which slowed international trade

• Government had no services to help people

• Banks had no insurance

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Unemployment 1925-1933

02468

101214

1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932

Year

Unemployed (in millions)

4. No Confidence in the Future and Unemployment

Unemployment was at 20+ percent

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Income Distribution, 1929

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5

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$10,000 and Over$5,000-$9,999$2,000-$4,999$1,999 and under

5. Disparity between the rich and the poor

- By 1929, 1% of Americans controlled 40% of the wealth in this country. - Most of the money went to corporations and owners instead of the workers - which caused American workers to have less money to save and spend.

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Images of the Great Depression

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Destitute pea pickers in CaliforniaLange, Dorothea

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A family in a “lean-to” tent

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Another mother and her child living in a lean-to tent

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New Deal and Response to GD

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Roosevelt won the office of President of the United States of America in November 1932, by a landslide over incumbent Herbert Hoover. When he took office in March 1933, he wasted no time in following through on his campaign promises. FDR’s “First Hundred Days” saw a whirlwind of activity as Roosevelt worked tirelessly, then and throughout his three terms, to pull America out of the Great Depression. President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs were designed to tackle the economic crisis on many levels:• federal assistance for people who had lost their jobs, houses, savings, and livelihoods• job creation for the unemployed through massive public works projects• agricultural assistance for troubled farmers• manufacturing assistance for troubled industries• stricter banking regulations to prevent bank failures• creation of the FDIC to protect bank customers’ deposits• investment in the banking system to free up credit