UNIT 14: THE GREAT DEPRESSION

OHS HISTORY TEAM

Learning Objectives

• Analyze the causes of the Great Depression

• Analyze the causes of the Dust Bowl

• Describe the impact of the Great Depression on the American people

• Describe the steps taken by President Herbert Hoover

Big Concepts• The consumer economy of the 1920s led to high levels of spending using credit and installment

plans.

• Americans speculated on the stock market hoping to get rich

• This stock speculation drove up stock prices and led to the collapse of the stock market

• Laissez-faire economic policies led to an unregulated over heated economy

• Farms continued to over produce following World War I leading to a decline in crop prices and increased farmer debt

• High tariffs protected American businesses but hurt global trade

• The economic decline that started in 1929 led to bank failures and increased unemployment.

• An environmental disaster known as the Dust Bowl hit the farming Midwest due to over farming, drought, and high winds.

• Many Americans lost their homes and jobs.

• Thousands of citizens wandered the country for work and lived in shantytowns

• President Herbert Hoover’s initial response was to let Americans work their way out of the crisis.

• Eventually Hoover began using the government to fight against the Great Depression

• Herbert Hoover’s popularity quickly declined due to his response to the Great Depression and forcibly removing a group of protesting World War I veterans out of the capital.

Key Vocabulary

• Yellow = MUST COPY

• Green = Copy if time permits

Great Depression

• 1929-1943

• Worst economic crisis in American history

Excessive Consumerism

• 1920s Cars, radios, electrical appliances = increase American spending

• Spending and buying things = consumerism

Buying on Margin

• Rapid growth of the stock market

• Americans BORROW MONEY to buy stocks

• Stock = share/part of a company

• Value of stock depends on demand

Stock Market Crash

• Stock market rapidly increased throughout the 1920s

• In October investors begin to sell their shares

• Leads to panic and mass selling

• Loss of $396 billion dollars (todays value)

Bank Failures

• Many banks had loaned money to investors or had invested in the stock market themselves

• The market collapse leads to bank closures

• Fearful Americans RUN to their banks to try and get their savings out

• Many lose everything they had saved

High Tariffs

• Smoot-Hawley tariff raised import taxes to protect American businesses and farmers

• Adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression

Overproduction Agriculture and Manufacturing• Farms produced excessive amounts of food during World War I and

didn’t stop when the war ended

• Businesses overproduce goods due to consumerism of the 1920s

• Over supply = drop in prices and demand = hurts economy

Rising Unemployment

• Businesses begin to close due over production, tariffs, bank failures and the stock market collapse

• Leads to increased unemployment

Dust Bowl

• Over farming the land, drought, and high winds cause economic disaster in the mid-west

• Dust destroys crops and kills livestock

• Many mid-westerners lose everything and become migrants .

• Dust Bowl migrants nicknamed “okies”

Hoovervilles

Americans that lose their jobs and homes live in shanty towns

Herbert Hoover’s Response

• Rugged Individualism – Hoover felt Americans could work their ways out of their financial problems

• Public Works Projects – started government construction problems to provide jobs. HOOVER DAM

• Reconstruction Finance Corporation – provided money to banks to provide loans to businesses to jump start economy “trickle down” economics.

Bonus Army

• Jobless World War I veterans marched on Washington to demand early payment of their bonus for serving in World War I.

• Congress refuses and Hoover orders the Army to forcibly remove them

• Damages Hoover’s changes at re-election in 1932

Chronology Timeline

1929 – Stock Market Collapse

1929 – Beginning Great Depression

1930 – Smoot-Hawley Tariff passed

1930– Dust Bowl Begins

1933- 4,000 Banks close

1932 – Bonus Army marches on DC

1931- Hoover Dam construction starts

1932 – Franklin Roosevelt defeats Hoover