United States History The Great Depression | Concordia University Wisconsin

University:
Concordia University Wisconsin
Course:
HIST 1215 | American Civilization II
Academic year:

2021
Views:

42

Pages:

2
Author:

Corey Garrison

The Great Depression ● The main causes of the Depression were: o Overproduction of consumer goods: By the late 1920s, people weren’t buying as many toasters, washing machines, cars, etc. anymore. However, the factories kept on making them in high numbers, so many companies went bankrupt (out of business). o Overproduction of farm crops: As Europe recovered from WWI, they didn’t need food from the US anymore. However, US farmers kept growing many crops; this led to an oversupply of farm crops and very low prices. (Many farmers had trouble surviving.) o Too much credit: Many people and businesses were buying the new consumer products on credit. So, when the economy slowed, many couldn’t pay their debts. o Speculation on the stock market: People got rich in the 1920s buying risky stocks “on margin” (with credit). So, when the stock market crashed, many lost their life savings. President Herbert Hoover did not respond well to the Depression and kept ignoring people’s suffering by telling the country that things would get better soon. Homeless people-built villages of shacks they called “Hooverville.” Sometimes newspapers were called “Hoover blankets” since people who couldn’t afford blankets used newspapers instead. Here are some other important effects of the Great Depression: ● Many people were hungry, so they did not have money for food. Bread lines formed in order to feed people. ● Thousands of hobos roamed the US, wandering from city to city by hitching on railroad cars and searching for food and work. ● In the Great Plains, drought (no rain), combined with over farming, led to the Dust Bowl (when the sky of the Great Plains was filled with so much dust that many farmers had to leave their farms and flee (many went to California)). ● The Bonus March: WW I veterans marched on Washington, demanding the bonus that the government had promised them. They camped out in city parks and eventually, military troops chased them out. The violence used against the Bonus Marchers was seen by many Americans as wrong, another bad mark for Hoover. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, the worst year of the Depression. He began the program known as the New Deal: a combination of work relief (jobs in public works projects), direct relief (money, such as the Social Security program), and bank reform (improvements in the banking system, such as FDIC insurance of savings accounts). ● FDR’s New Deal is remembered as a big success in helping the US survive the Depression. ● The one negative for FDR in the ‘30s was the court-packing scandal (when FDR tried to increase the number of Supreme Court justices from 9 to 15). He wanted to appoint new justices who would be more friendly to his New deal programs, but Congress stopped him.