Underlying Causes of the Great Depression

• over-production and over- expansion• high tariffs killed international trade• dependence on too few primary products • only natural resources for

export

Underlying Causes continued

• Low standard of living for many – not everyone prospered in the 1920’s

• Canadians and businesses overly optimistic about the future

• Overuse of credit – buy now, pay later

• Stocks bought on margin (credit)

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Immediate Causes - Stock Market Crash

Immediate Causes – Drought/Dustbowl

• On top of dropping prices and increasing costs, farmers faced droughts for 10 years which resulted in dustbowl storms

• This is one of the reasons for the decade being called “The Dirty Thirties”

Dustbowl Storm• Day turned to night

Dustbowls

• Not rotating crops also contributed to dustbowls

• Farmers only planted wheat because that was what earned them the most

• But,

• Wheat erodes the top of the soil and in dry conditions, the soil blows away in a dust storm

After the Storm

It finally rained, no soil left to hold the moisture – too late for this farmer

Impact of Great Depression

• This iconic image is of a migrant farm worker and mother in the U.S.

• What is the impact of the Great Depression on her and her family?

Preparing a Meal

No where to go

• Not necessarily 1930’s• Can be seen any day in

downtown Toronto, 2009

Where to go?

What about impact on Immigrants?

• “In my search for employment I was free to range the whole of commercial Winnipeg and nobody denied me a job from any ulterior motive. This did not hold for the Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews. … As much as two-thirds of it (Winnipeg) was barred and bolted against them.”

Cinderella ManHooverville – Central Park - NYC