Effects of the great depression

Learning Targets• Students will review and explain the causes of the Great

Depression• Students will predict the effect of the Great Depression on

the United States• Students will understand the effects of the Great

Depression and generate solutions• Students will analyze the effects of the Great Depression

through a primary source

Causes of the Great Depression: Review• Watch video clip and review notes from Monday• Close your notes. On your whiteboard, list as many causes of the Great Depression as you can remember.

• Discuss as a class.

Predict the Effects of the Great Depression• As a table, discuss the possible effects a Great Depression would have on the United States.

• Using one whiteboard, predict the effects of the Great Depression.

• Share with the large group.

A. Economic Effects:

1. Lost confidence in economy

2. Businesses reduced production or closed

3. Unemployment• at peak, 25% unemployed• Soup kitchens and bread lines

Unemployed gather in Chicago

Unemployed line up outside of the TN state employment office

Breadline for the unemployed in Chicago

4. Banks closed• 4,000 during 1933 alone

Americans waiting to take savings out of bank after the Stock Market Crash.

5. Reduced purchasing power

6. Created a continuing cycle of depression

Businesses closed/reduced production

People laid off or fired

People couldn’t buy goods or food

No demand for goods

Less productivity

People lost savings

Banks closed

B. Human Effects:

1. Eviction

Homeless, evicted womanon streets of Chicago afterlosing her house

2. Farms and houses foreclosed

Auctions were common as moreFarmers lost their farms.

3. “Hoovervilles” – camps for homeless (blamed President Herbert Hoover)

“Hooverville” on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.

4. Migratory workers – people move for work

“Oakies” and others pack up belongings to move for work.

Dorothea Lange’s famous photo of migratory workers in the Salinas Valley in CA

Dorothea Lange Photographs

1. Study the photographs taken by Dorothea Lange.

2. In your notebook, write a story about the people in the photos. Consider:

a. Who are the people?

b. What are their circumstances?

c. What are their hopes, dreams and frustrations?

d. What is the future for these people?