· More than 15 million people were unemployed· Thousands of homes and farms were foreclosed · Millions lost their savings· Businesses lost money

What needed to be done…

Great Depression Statistics:

• 9 million people had no jobs.

• Without work, families couldn’t afford to buy food.

• New York’s 82 bread lines served an average of 85,000 small meals a day: bread and soup or bread and stew.

• Men, women and children waited in lines for their daily food. Some fainted from hunger while they waited.

What was it like growing up during the Great Depression?

25% of were unemployed.. 250,000 young people were homeless in

the early years of the Depression. Many became nomads, traveling the highways and railways.

20% of America's children were hungry and without proper clothing.

Children went without shoes and warm clothes for the winter.

Thousands of schools had to close down because they lacked the money to stay open.

Who was President at the start of the Great Depression?

People blamed President Herbert Hoover

Americans felt he was not doing enough to help them

Hoovervilles

Homeless people built shacks and formed shantytowns, which were called “HoovervillesHoovervilles” out of bitterness toward President Hoover, who refused to provide government aid to the unemployed.

What was the President’s response to the Great Depression?

President Hoover did not believe the government should get involved.

The Dust Bowl

Farm goods prices fell by 50 percent between 1929 and 1932. While many people went hungry, surplus crops couldn’t be sold for a profit.

Natural forces inflicted another blow on farmers. Beginning in Arkansas in 1930, a severe drought spread across the Great Plains through the middle of the decade.

Once-productive topsoil turned to dust that was carried away by strong winds, piling up in drifts against houses and barns.

Parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado became known as the Dust Bowl, as the drought destroyed the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of small farmers.

Packing up their families and meager possessions, many of these farmers migrated to California in search of work.

Dust Bowl

Caused by:1. Drought2. Overplanting3. High winds

By 1932 Americans were ready to get rid of Herbert Hoover and elect a new President.