class on responses to depression

The Dust Bowl Mr. Danowski

Yonge Street, Toronto

Picture Comparison

Richard Bedford Bennett• Served as PM, Conservative Party, during 1930-35, the worst

years of the Great Depression• Was a corporate lawyer and business leader• Contemporary example: Mitt Romney

• Firm believer in capitalism and was a self-made millionaire

R.B. Bennett• Significance:• Promised to end unemployment or “perish in the attempt”

• Did little to relieve the misery of Depression• Became more frustrated and angry• Secretly donated money to charities and others who wrote

letters to him

• http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/medicare/medic-2c02e.shtml

Regional Effects • Hardest hit = West• Why?• Prairies in the 1920s were the most prosperous of regions

• Ontario and Quebec not hit as hard• Why?• Effect on Agriculture and Staple Industries

Effect on Agriculture• What is a ripple effect? • How did the Depression hurt farmers in the west? • Manufacturing -> cut back on production of farm equipment• What does this lead to?• Layoff of workers• Unemployment rose fewer people could buy stuff so production

fell in consumer goods and more job losses because of this• A vicious cycle

Effect of “Staple” Industries• Staple = Resources • Ex. Fishing, timber, coal

• There was a diminishing demand for resources due to global lack of demand

• Newfoundland hit hard• No more fish exports

• Depression meant lower wages and struggle to maintain the necessities of life• Examples?

The Dust Bowl

• Thick grasslands in the west (Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba) protected soils from nature• Helped the soil preserve its moisture and

prevented winds from eroding it• Cycles of Nature

Nature Cycle• Severe droughts hit southern Alberta and Saskatchewan • Without rain crops failed • Topsoil was swept away by hot, dry windstorms and darkened

the skies for hundreds of kilometers

The Dust Bowl

Grasshoppers infested crops!

Wheat Rust!

Severe Epidemic wiped out wheat crops in the west!