The Great Depression

Less jobs, Less homes, Less money, More hobos

After the Stock Market Crashed…• Hundreds of banks ran out of money and closed– People couldn’t pay back small or big loans– The banks had invested in the stock market, too

• Business success started to decline– Many lost confidence in their own money supply and stopped

the cycle of buy buy buy!– Businesses couldn’t get new investors to expand

• Many couldn’t afford their house payments– Formerly “regular working folk” become homeless– Remember, even when the economy was booming

• 71% earned less than the minimum standard of living• 80% had no savings and all members of family had to work

Some Stats for the Number People• US Gross Domestic Product (current dollars)

The Great Crash, 1929-1933in 1929: $103.6 billionin 1930: $91.2in 1931: $76.5in 1932: $58.7in 1933: $56.4

New Deal Recovery and Recession, 1934-39in 1934: $66.0 billionin 1935: $73.3in 1936: $83.8in 1937: $91.9in 1938: $86.1in 1939: $92.2

Mobilization for WWII, 1940-1945in 1940: $101.4 billionin 1941: $126.7in 1942: $161.9in 1943: $198.6in 1944: $219.8in 1945: $223.1

http://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html

• Hoover Administration, 1929-1932in 1929: $9.4 billionin 1930: $10.0in 1931: $9.9in 1932: $8.7Average government spending as percentage of GDP, 1929-32: 12.0%

Roosevelt's New Dealin 1933: $8.7 billionin 1934: $10.5in 1935: $10.9in 1936: $13.1in 1937: $12.8in 1938: $13.8in 1939: $14.8Average government spending as percentage of GDP, 1933-39: 15.4%

Mobilization for WWIIin 1940: $15.0 billionin 1941: $26.5in 1942: $62.7in 1943: $94.8in 1944: $105.3in 1945: $93Average government spending as percentage of GDP, 1940-45: 35.3%

• Unemployment During the Great Depression

Average rate of unemployment

in 1929: 3.2%in 1930: 8.9%in 1931: 16.3%in 1932: 24.1%in 1933: 24.9%in 1934: 21.7%in 1935: 20.1%in 1936: 16.9%in 1937: 14.3%in 1938: 19.0%in 1939: 17.2%3

• Percentage of Eligible Voters Who Cast Ballots in General Elections

in 1920: 43.5%in 1924: 43.9%in 1928: 51.9%in 1932: 52.5%in 1936: 57.0%in 1940: 59.2%in 1944: 52.9%

Fertility Rates (per 100,000 women aged 15-44)

in 1928: 93.8in 1929: 89.3in 1930: 89.2in 1931: 84.6in 1932: 81.7in 1933: 76.3in 1934: 78.5in 1935: 77.2in 1936: 75.8in 1937: 77.1in 1938: 79.1in 1939: 77.6in 1940: 79.9in 1941: 83.4in 1942: 91.5in 1943: 94.3in 1944: 88.8in 1945: 85.9

The Dust Bowl• People in America had moved out West in greater numbers to farm

and greatly impacted their environment– They tore out the natural, deep-rooted grasses to plant their crops.– There were not enough plants in the ground to hold in the soil

• A very hot, dry summer in the 1930s led to dry ground and even less living plants in the ground with roots holding down the soil– Heavy winds blew the soil around the farms. It was like walls of dust.– The dust walls settled and buried the remaining plants, resulting in even

less plants to hold down the soil… making the problem even worse.• Many Americans lost everything they owned and had to leave their

homes and start over.– The book The Grapes of Wrath tells a fictional story based on the

experiences of many real people in which a farming family can’t financially survive and moves to California to find work (which doesn’t work out great either)

Blame Hoover• Herbert Hoover was president when the stock market crashed

and, unfortunately for him, got the blame for things• He believed that private charities and churches should provide for

the needy, not the government, so he didn’t significantly act immediately to help out those who lost their jobs or their homes – He eventually saw the need for greater government intervention

because there were too many people for private charities to take care of, but it was too little too late

– One famous campaign ad promised that he would bring back “a chicken in every pot,” but that future was a long way off for many people

• Hoovervilles– Across America, people who had lost their homes began assembling

shacks out of anything they could find– These neighborhoods became known as shantytowns or “Hoovervilles”

The Bonus Army• WWI veterans been promised a future bonus (set to come

in 1945), but many of them needed it NOW • The government didn’t have the money to pay these

20,000 men the money at that time, so in 1932 they staged a protest in front of the White House

• They set up camp (their own Hooverville) and Hoover told them to leave (which they ignored)

• Hoover gave the military the power to remove the Bonus Army from the immediate White House area, but the leader, General Douglas MacArthur, actually burned the Hooverville of his fellow (but former) soldiers

• Hoover lost a lot of support because of this act and the men never got their money

Rise of Hobos• Millions of men who had jobs and had supported their families now

couldn’t find work– Some stayed in their own town looking for new work or standing in line

waiting for food (though in the 1930s, people would MUCH rather earn their food than be given it for free…things have greatly changed in our culture)

– Many others “rode the rails” (often illegally) to new towns, hoping that the new town would have job openings

• They became migrant workers or, more often, migrant not-workers because there weren’t jobs in the new towns

• The nick-name for these guys stuck around– hobos• They developed a hobo culture, including songs and signs that helped

them communicate without alerting the town folk to their intentions– If a nice old woman would give away food for free, they’d put a certain mark

outside her fence so that others would know to stop by there and look pitiful– If a farm would often hire workers, a different mark would go outside their

barn so hobos would know to stop there to ask for work

Culture and Attitude• The idea of buying what you WANT instead of just

what you NEED disappeared, because people couldn’t even afford what they needed

• Trust in banks also disappeared; many from this time period still don’t trust banks and prefer to hide their money under the mattress

• Music and radio tended to serve as a distraction from the depressing Depression; popular songs like “Happy Days are Here Again” and “Pennies from Heaven” were more upbeat and positive than you might expect