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Vocabulary
The Great Depression
Stock Market Stocks Drought The Dust Bowl Soup Kitchens
Herbert Hoover Franklin Roosevelt Duke Ellington Margaret Mitchell Jesse Owens
1929-1939 What were the
causes of “The Great Depression”?
What was the role of the “Roaring 20’S in the Depression? Many found being broke
humiliating.
The Roaring 20’s The new concept
of “credit” People were
buying: Automobiles Appliances Clothes
Fun times reigned
Why was this bad? Credit system
People didn’t really have the money they were spending
WWI The U.S. was a major
credit loaner to other nations in need
Many of these nations could not pay us back
The Stock Market What are Stocks? What is the Stock
Market? People bought
stocks on margins If a stock is $100
you can pay $10 now and the rest later when the stock rose
Stocks fallNow the person has
less than $100 and no money to pay back
And then….
With people panicking about their money investors tried to sell their stocksThis leads to a huge
decline in stocksStocks were
worthless now People who bought on
“margins” now could not pay
Investors were average people that were now broke
Herbert Hoover was president at the start in 1929.
He thought the best way to help was give aid to businesses.
He also felt that doing nothing to help was the best way.
Farmers were already feeling the effects Prices of crops went down Many farms foreclosed
People could not afford luxuries Factories shut down Businesses went out
Banks could not pay out money People could not pay their taxes
Schools shut down due to lack of funds Many families became homeless
and had to live in shanties
Many waited in unemployment lines hoping for a job.
People in cities would wait in line for bread to bring to their family.
Soup Kitchens
Soup Kitchens were run by charities. Thousands would line up just to get soup
and bread. Often the only meal they would have for
the entire day!
Some families were forced to relocate because they had no money.
“Hooverville” Some families
were forced to live in shanty towns A grouping of
shacks and tents in vacant lots
They were referred to as “Hooverville” because of President Hoover’s lack of help during the depression.
The Dust Bowl
• During the 1930’s, the Great Plains suffered from deadly dust storms.
A drought in the Great Plains lead to dust storms that
destroyed crops.
“The Dust Bowl”
The Land Was Buried Crops turned to
dust=No food to be sent out
Homes buried Fields blown away South in state of
emergency Dust Bowl the #1
weather crisis of the 20th century
Causes of the Dust Bowl:
• Overgrazing by cattle and plowing by farmers destroyed the grasses that once held down the soil.
Dust Storms: "Kodak view of a dust storm Baca Co., Colorado, Easter Sunday 1935
• The loose soil, a drought, and high winds helped to cause the Dust Bowl.
Dust Storms; "One of South Dakota's Black Blizzards, 1934"
Farmer and sons, dust storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936.
Photographer: Arthur Rothstein.
Two Families During the Depression
A Farm Foreclosure
Some families tried to make money by selling useful crafts like baskets.
Farm Security Administration:
farmers whose topsoil blew away joined the sod caravans of "Okies" on Route 66 to California. (Circa 1935)
Farm Security Administration: Migrant worker on California highway. (Circa 1935)
Toward Los Angeles, California. 1937. (Dorothea Lange.)
Perhaps 2.5 million people abandoned their homes in the South and the Great Plains during the Great Depression and went on the road.
Migrant family looking for work in the pea fields of California. (Circa 1935)
Farm Security Administration:Arkansas squatter for three years near Bakefield, California. Photo by D. Lange. (Circa 1935)
• Migrant farmers from Arkansas became known as Arkies.
Young Oklahoma mother; age 18, penniless, stranded in Imperial Valley, California.
• Migrant farmers from Oklahoma became known as Okies.
Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother," destitute in a pea picker's camp, because of the failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tent in order to buy food. Most of the 2,500 people in this camp were destitute. By the end of the decade there were still 4 million migrants on the road.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
President in 1932 by defeating Hoover Introduced the “New Deal” “The only thing we have to fear is fear
itself.”
