The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1929

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Chapter 25

• The Great Depression and the New Deal, 19291939

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• The Great Depression was the worst peacetime
  disaster in American history and dominated the
  political, social, and cultural developments of
  the 1930s.

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Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution,
the United States had experienced recessions or
panics at least every twenty years, but none as
severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s
After 1927, consumer spending declined, and
housing construction slowed. In 1928,
manufacturers cut back on production and began to
lay off workers, and by the summer of 1929 the
economy was clearly in recession. The stock
market crash of 1929 was an indication of
serious, underlying problems in the United States
economy.
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• The Crash made the cracks in America's
  superficial prosperity more obvious. And, since
  the causes of the economic crises were complex,
  the solution to the economic problems facing the
  United States would be complicated as well.
• The stock market had become the symbol of the
  nations prosperity, yet only about 10 percent of
  the nations households owned stock.

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• In 1928 and 1929, stock prices rose an average of
  40 percent market activity, such as margin
  buying, was essentially unregulated.
• On Black Thursday, October 24, and Black
  Tuesday, October 29, 1929, overextended
  investors began to sell their portfolios waves
  of panic selling ensued.
• Commercial banks and speculators had invested in
  stocks the impact of the Great Crash was felt
  across the nation as banks failed and many
  middle-class Americans lost their life savings.

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Causes of the Depression

• The crash of 1929 destroyed the faith of those
  who viewed the stock market as the crowning
  symbol of American prosperity, precipitating a
  crisis of confidence that prolonged the
  depression. So we naturally ask ourselves that
  one important question
• 1. What were the origins and consequences of the
  Great Depression?

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• As we just noted - the stock market crash of
  October 1929 cannot alone account for the length
  and severity of the slump.

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What then were the causes of the Great
Depression?

• The Great Crash of October 1929 wiped out the
  savings of thousands of Americans and destroyed
  consumers optimism. Many investors had bought
  stock on margin while the prices were inflated
  and lost money when they were forced to sell at
  prices below what they had paid.

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• Structural weaknesses in the economy, especially
  in agriculture and sick industries such as
  coal, textiles, shipping, and railroads, made the
  economy vulnerable to a crisis in the financial
  markets. These had suffered setbacks in the
  1920s.

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• The unequal distribution of wealth made it
  impossible to sustain the expansive economic
  growth of the late 1920s.
• In the 1920s the share of national income going
  to upper- and middle-income families had
  increased, so that in 1929 the lowest 40 percent
  of the population received only 12.5 percent of
  the national income.
• Once the depression began, not enough people
  could afford to spend the money necessary in
  order to revive the economy, a phenomenon known
  as under-consumption.

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• Once the depression began, Americas unequal
  income distribution left the majority of people
  unable to spend the amount of money needed to
  revive the economy.
• The Great Depression became self-perpetuating.
  The more the economy contracted, the more people
  expected the depression to last the longer they
  expected it to last, the more afraid they became
  to spend or invest their money.

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• In 1931, the Federal Reserve System significantly
  increased the discount rate, squeezing the money
  supply, forcing prices down, and depriving
  businesses of funds for investment.
• Americans kept their dollars stashed away rather
  than deposited, further tightening the money
  supply.

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• Domestic factors far outweighed international
  causes of Americas protracted decline, yet the
  economic problems of the rest of the world
  affected the United States and vice versa.
• By the late 1920s, European economies were
  staggering under the weight of huge debts and
  trade imbalances with the United States by 1931,
  most European economies had collapsed.

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• When U.S. companies cut back production, they
  also cut their purchases of raw materials and
  supplies abroad.
• When American financiers sharply reduced their
  foreign investment and consumers bought fewer
  European goods, debt repayment became even more
  difficult, straining the gold standard.

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• The reduced flow of American capital to world
  markets after the Great Crash and the trade war
  initiated by the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930 led
  to a decline in world trade that made the
  depression worse.
• In response to the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930,
  foreign governments imposed their own trade
  restrictions, further intensifying the worldwide
  depression.

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• From 1929 to 1933, the U.S. gross national
  product fell by almost half, private investment
  plummeted 88 percent, and unemployment rose to a
  staggering 24.9 percent those who had jobs faced
  wage cuts or layoffs.

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Summary- Causes of the Great Depression

• Stock Market Speculation
• Buying on margin common
• Stock prices spiraled out of control
• Mistakes by the Federal Reserve
• Tight money policy in 1930 and 1931
• Worsened situation and prevented recovery
• Ill-advised tariff

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Causes of the Great Depression (cont)

• Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930)
• Increased duties and fostered retaliation by
  other countries
• Seriously curtailed exports, and international
  trade in general
• Maldistribution of wealth
• Fostered by Republican tax policies
• Slowed consumption and prevented consumer-driven
  growth

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Income Distribution Before the Great Depression
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Hoover the Fall of the Self-Made Man

• Hoovers program
• First turned to associational principles
• Turned to more vigorous action when that didnt
  work
• Moratorium on foreign loan payments
• Glass-Steagall Act of 1932
• Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932)
• Home Loan Bank Board (1932)
• Could not accept radical solutions, such as
  deficit spending
• Reluctant to provide direct aid to individuals
• Bonus Army, 1932
• World War I veterans sought early payment of
  promised bonus
• Hoover authorized force to eject them from
  Washington
• Shocked the nation
• Contributed to Hoovers defeat in 1932

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What were the most dramatic episodes of protest
during the Hoover years, and what do they tell us
about the depression?

• A strike of coal miners in Harlan County,
  Kentucky, featured police violence and resulted
  in the crushing of the union.
• A demonstration at Fords River Rouge plant in
  1932 resulted in three deaths and fifty serious
  injuries.

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• In 1932, a group of Midwestern farmers formed the
  Farm Holiday Association and dumped food on the
  roads rather than to see it reach the market at
  prices below production costs.
• A group of unemployed World War I veterans
  calling themselves the Bonus Army marched on
  Washington and remained encamped in the city
  after Congress failed to pass a relief bill for
  them. They were violently evicted by federal
  troops.

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• Frustration and despair reached many corners of
  American society during the depression. For the
  most part the voices of protest were silenced by
  the authorities.
• The Communist Party organized and participated in
  some of the protests but remained a small
  organization with only 12,000 members.

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How do we describe Evaluate President Hoovers
response to the Great Depression?

• Herbert Hoover had the misfortune of being
  president in the worst years of the depression.
  He eventually took a number of aggressive and
  creative steps to combat the crisis, including
  deficit spending on public works and government
  home loans.
• Ultimately, however, he accepted conventional
  wisdom and encouraged Congress to pass higher
  taxes, which made the depression worse. He also
  refused to consider direct federal relief for the
  unemployed.

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• As the depression persisted, more and more people
  blamed Hoover.
• His reputation as a cold, heartless leader was
  confirmed for many when he ordered the eviction
  from Washington of the Bonus Army, a group of
  unemployed veterans of World War I lobbying for
  immediate bonus payments.
• In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Hoover at
  the depth of the depression.

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How did Herbert Hoover try to combat the
depression?

• Hoover did not embrace a laissez-faire approach
  he called on business leaders to hold the line on
  wages.
• He cut taxes and increased public works spending
  (policies in line with what would later be called
  Keynesian remedies for a depression).
• He imposed a moratorium on foreign-debt payments
  in order to stimulate world trade.

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• He later raised taxes to lower interest rates and
  balance the budget, but that hurt the economy.
• He encouraged the creation of the Reconstruction
  Finance Corporation, which lent money to banks
  and large companies in the hope that their
  increased production would trickle down to the
  rest of the economy.
• Most significantly, Hoover refused to sanction
  direct federal relief for the needy, claiming
  that this would create a permanent class of
  dependent citizens, something he believed would
  be worse than the continued deprivations of the
  depression.

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Presidential Election, 1932
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• As the 1932 election approached, the nation
  overall was not in a revolutionary mood
  Americans initially blamed themselves rather than
  the system for their hardships.
• The Republicans nominated Hoover once again for
  president, and the Democrats nominated Governor
  Franklin Delano Roosevelt of New York.
• In 1921, Roosevelt had suffered an attack of
  polio that left both his legs paralyzed, yet he
  emerged from the illness a stronger, more
  resilient man.

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• Roosevelt won the election, yet in his campaign,
  he hinted only vaguely at new approaches to
  alleviate the depression. People voted as much
  against Hoover as for Roosevelt.

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The Democratic Roosevelt

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)
• Governor of New York (19291933)
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Democratic Party divided during 1920s
• Agrarians favored government regulation of both
  the economy and peoples lives
• Urban ethnics opposed government intervention in
  peoples lives but were divided about the
  efficacy of intervention in the economy
• FDR gravitation toward new reform movement of
  liberalism
• Government should regulate capitalism
• Government should not tell people how to behave

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New Deal

• The New Deal came to stand for a complex set of
  responses to the nation's economic collapse. The
  New Deal was meant to relieve suffering yet
  conserve the nation's political and economic
  institutions. Through unprecedented intervention
  by the national government, Roosevelt's programs
  put people to work, instilling hope and restoring
  the nation's confidence.

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First New Deal, 19331935

• Saving the banks
• Bank holiday and Emergency Banking Act
• Glass-Steagall Act (1933)
• Created Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
• Securities Act (1933) and Exchange Act (1934)
• Saving the people
• Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
• Civil Works Administration (CWA)
• Homeowners Loan Corporation (HLC)

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Bank Failures, 19291933
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First New Deal (cont)

• Repairing the Economy Agriculture
• Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)
• Goal was curtailing farm production by paying
  farmers not to produce
• Tenant Farmers and sharecroppers left out
• Soil Conservation Service (SCS)
• Deal with problem of Dust Bowl
• Supreme Court declared AAA unconstitutional in
  1935
• Administration replied with Soil Conservation and
  Domestic Allotment Act
• Took land out of cultivation for conservation
  rather than economic reasons

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First New Deal (cont)

• Repairing the Economy Industry
• National Recovery administration (NRA)
• Goal was to limit production through persuasion
  and association
• Industry-drafted codes for prices, wages and
  hours
• Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 1935

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First New Deal (cont)

• Public Works Administration (PWA)
• Built bridges, roads, dams, hospitals, schools,
  airports
• Helped to spur development in Arizona,
  California, Washington
• Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
• Government itself would promote economic
  development
• Control flooding, generate electricity, develop
  industry, improve transportation
• The New Deal and Western development
• Dam construction central

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Tennessee Valley Authority
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Federal Water Projects in California Built or
Funded by the New Deal
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Political Mobilization, Political Unrest,
19341935

• Populist critics of the New Deal
• Huey Long (spread the wealth among all our
  people)
• Father Charles Coughlin and National Union for
  Social Justice
• Francis Townsend and elderly pensions
• Labor and the New Deal
• NIRA supposedly supported collective bargaining
• Employers refusal to follow codes spurred
  strikes and violence
• Midterm elections of 1934

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Political Mobilization, Political Unrest,
19341935 (cont)

• Huge victories for Democrats
• Many radicals sent to Congress
• Would help to shape post-1935 New Deal
• Rise of radical third parties and political
  movements
• Minnesota Farmer-Labor (MFL) Party
• End poverty in California (EPIC)
• Growth of Communist Party of America

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Second New Deal 19351937

• Philosophical underpinnings
• Reliance on economic theory of underconsumptionism
  
• Route to recovery was boosting consumer
  expenditures, not restricting output
• Supporting unions to push wages up
• Social welfare put money in peoples pockets
• Public works projects to create new jobs
• Government borrowing from private sources would
  fund new measures and lead to end of Depression

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• Major measures of the Second New Deal
• Social Security Act
• National Labor Relations Act
• Rural Electrification Administration
• Emergency Relief Appropriation Act
• Works Progress Administration

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Second New Deal (cont)

• FDR re-elected by landslide
• Strong anti-corporate rhetoric during campaign
• Gave Democrats reputation as party of reform and
  of common American
• Gap between FDRs Rhetoric and reality
• Not as radical in practice as his words would
  have suggested
• Receiving significant support from some
  capitalists

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• At the beginning of his administration, Roosevelt
  convened Congress in a special session and
  launched the New Deal with an avalanche of bills.
  Historians refer to this period as the "Hundred
  Days." Roosevelt introduced a new notion of the
  presidency whereby the president, not Congress,
  was the legislative leader. Most of the bills he
  proposed set up new government agencies, called
  the "alphabet soup" agencies because of their
  array of acronyms.

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• AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act)--Designed to
  help American farmers by stabilizing prices and
  limiting overproduction, the AAA initiated the
  first direct subsidies to farmers who did not
  plant crops. The United States Supreme Court
  later declared the AAA unconstitutional and an
  unnecessary invasion of private property rights.

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• CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps)--A public works
  project, operated under the control of the army,
  which was designed to promote environmental
  conservation while getting young, unemployed men
  off city street corners. Recruits planted trees,
  built wildlife shelters, stocked rivers and lakes
  with fish, and cleared beaches and campgrounds.
  The CCC housed the young men in tents and
  barracks, gave them three square meals a day, and
  paid them a small stipend. The army's experience
  in managing and training large numbers of
  civilians would prove invaluable in WWII.
  Wisconsin was a beneficiary of the CCC one of
  the organizations many local projects was trail
  construction at Devil's Lake State Park.

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Civilian Conservation Corps Workers
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• TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)--One of the most
  ambitious and controversial New Deal projects,
  the TVA proposed building dams and power plants
  along the Tennessee River to bring electric power
  to rural areas in seven states. Although the TVA
  provided many Americans with electricity for the
  first time and provided jobs to thousands of
  unemployed construction workers, the program
  outraged many private power companies.

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NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act)--

• The NIRA established the NRA (National Recovery
  Administration) to stimulate production and
  competition by having American industries set up
  a series of codes designed to regulate prices,
  industrial output, and general trade practices.
  The federal government, in turn, would agree to
  enforce these codes. In return for their
  cooperation, federal officials promised to
  suspend anti-trust legislation. Section 7A of the
  NIRA recognized the rights of labor to organize
  and to have collective bargaining with
  management. The NIRA was the most controversial
  piece of legislation to come out of the Hundred
  Days and many of its opponents charged it with
  being un-American, socialist, even communist,
  even though it did not violate the sanctity of
  private property or alter the American wage
  system.

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• The National Industrial Recovery Act launched the
  National Recovery Administration (NRA), which
  established a system of industrial
  self-government to handle the problems of
  overproduction, cutthroat competition, and price
  instability.
• The NRAs codes established prices and production
  quotas, as well as minimum wages and maximum
  hours, outlawed child labor, and gave workers
  union rights.
• Trade associations, controlled by large
  companies, tended to dominate the NRAs code
  drafting process, thus solidifying the power of
  large businesses at the expense of smaller ones.

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The Federal Emergency Relief Administration

• (FERA), set up in May 1933 under the direction of
  Harry Hopkins offered federal money to the states
  for relief programs and was designed to keep
  people from starving until other recovery
  measures took hold. Over the programs two-year
  existence, FERA spent 1 billion.
• Whenever possible New Deal administrators
  promoted work relief over cash subsidies, and
  they consistently favored jobs that would not
  compete directly with the private sector.

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Civil Works Administration (CWA)

• Established in November, 1933, the Civil Works
  Administration (CWA) put 2.6 million men and
  women to work at its peak, it employed 4 million
  in public works jobs. The CWA lapsed the next
  spring after spending all its funds.
• Many of these early emergency measures were
  deliberately inflationary and meant to trigger
  price increases thought necessary to stimulate
  recovery.

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Why the NIRA failed

• Whether radical or conservative, the NIRA
  ultimately failed for three reasons
• The NRA assumed businesses would police
  themselves. The codes, established in the
  interest of protecting workers and consumers,
  were ultimately drawn up by the largest
  companies. This hurt small businesses.
• Corporations rarely respected the rights of labor
  to organize. Because of the number and complexity
  of the codes, the federal government never
  enforced labor's right to collective bargaining.
• The NRA attacked recovery from the wrong
  direction. It tried to stabilize prices by
  lowering production, rather than redistributing
  money to American consumers and encouraging them
  to purchase goods.
• Within two years, the Supreme Court declared the
  NIRA unconstitutional.

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"The Broker State"

• During his first two years in office, FDR
  promoted a new vision of the executive branch he
  viewed himself as an "honest broker" who would
  negotiate among competing interests. The
  president would mediate conflicts while balancing
  the interests of one group against another. His
  older cousin TR had held a similar idea of the
  presidency, but FDR expanded this concept of the
  broker state. However, the idea of the broker
  state has two inherent flaws

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• Presidents tend to get weaker the longer they are
  in office, because they have to make tough
  choices that alienate particular interest groups.
  
• The strongest interest groups can pressure even
  the most forceful broker. This was true in FDR's
  administration, when the NIRA and AAA favored big
  business and big agriculture

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• The New Deal accelerated the expansion of the
  federal bureaucracy, and power was increasingly
  centered in the nations capital, not in the
  states. During the 1930s the federal government,
  then, operated as a broker state, mediating
  between contending groups seeking power and
  benefits. After FDRs reelection in 1936, the New
  Deal began to falter. An abortive attempt to
  alter the structure of the Supreme Court undercut
  FDRs popularity, and his premature reductions in
  federal spending led to the Roosevelt recession
  of 1937 to 1938.

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• Roosevelts attempt to purge the Democratic
  Party of some of his most conservative opponents
  only widened the liberal-conservative rift as the
  1938 election approached. Fresh out of ideas and
  with the nation still in a depression, FDRs
  basic conservatism became more apparent.
  Tinkering with the system had not led to economic
  recovery something more drastic would be
  required.

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Second New Deal (cont)

• FDRs Advisors
• Idealistic, dedicated, confident
• Not all were men of wealth and privilege
• Important women in administration worked mostly
  behind the scenes
• Frances Perkins
• Little commitment in administration for womens
  equality
• Focused instead on protective legislation

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• Organized labor
• Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO)
• Labors Non-Partisan League (LNPL)
• UAW sit-down strike against GM, 1936
• Gained public stature as well as members

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Labor Union Membership 19331945
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Americas Minorities and the New Deal

• Easter and Southern European ethnics
• Formidable force within Democratic Party
• Received New Deal aid through programs targeted
  at urban areas

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• African Americans
• Marian Anderson
• New Deal did more to reinforce patterns of racial
  discrimination than to advance the cause of
  racial equality
• Administration took symbolic steps in support of
  civil rights but did not make the issue a
  priority

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Americas Minorities and the New Deal (cont)

• Mexican Americans
• Deportation campaign continued from Hoover
  administration
• Not really included in most New Deal programs
• Native Americans
• John Collier at the Bureau of Indian Affairs
• Commitment to cultural pluralism
• Indian Reorganization Act (1934)
• Revoked allotment practices
• Redistributed land to tribes and otherwise
  fostered community authority

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African Americans in the Depression

• African Americans, who had always known
  discrimination and limited opportunities, viewed
  the depression differently from most whites.
• Despite the black migration to the cities of the
  North, most African Americans still lived in the
  South and earned less than a quarter of the
  annual average wages of a factory worker.

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• Throughout the 1920s, southern agriculture
  suffered from falling prices and overproduction,
  so the depression made an already desperate
  situation worse.
• The Southern Tenant Farmers Union, which some
  black farmers joined, could do little to reform
  an agricultural system based on deep economic and
  racial inequalities

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• The hasty trials and the harsh sentences in the
  1931 Scottsboro, Alabama, rape case along with an
  increase in lynching in the early 1930s gave
  black Americans a strong incentive to head for
  the North and the Midwest.
• Harlem, one of their main destinations, was
  already strained by the enormous influx of
  African Americans in the 1920s and, in 1935, was
  the setting of the only major race riot of the
  decade, when anger exploded over the lack of
  jobs, a slowdown in relief services, and economic
  exploitation of blacks.

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• Partly in response to the riot but mainly in
  return for growing black allegiance to the
  Democratic Party, the New Deal channeled
  significant amounts of relief money toward blacks
  outside the South.
• The NAACP continued to challenge the status quo
  of race relations, though calls for racial
  justice went largely unheeded during the
  depression.

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Dust Bowl Migrations

• The years 1930 to 1941 witnessed the worst
  drought in Americas history, but low rainfall
  alone did not cause the dust bowl.

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What were the stages of the 1930s dust bowl
disaster?

• A severe drought on the Great Plains, after years
  of ill-advised farming techniques, - To maximize
  profit, farmers stripped the land of its natural
  vegetation, destroying the ecological balance of
  the plains when the rains dried up, there was
  nothing to hold the soil. This created severe
  wind erosion and ultimately a series of dust
  storms. In May 1934 the storms reached the Upper
  Midwest and even the East, where they blackened
  the skies

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• The dust bowl was one of the reasons for the
  great migration of Okies from the region. (The
  other was the eviction of farm workers from the
  land due to the growth of large-scale
  agriculture.)
• Okie descendants came to make up a large
  proportion of Californias population, especially
  in the San Joaquin Valley.

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• John Steinbecks Grapes of Wrath immortalized the
  Okies, ruined by the ecological disaster and
  unable to compete with large-scale corporate
  farms, who headed west in response to promises of
  good jobs in California.
• A few Okies were professionals, business
  proprietors, or white-collar workers, and the
  drive west was fairly easy along Route 66.

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• California agriculture was large-scale,
  intensive, and diversified, and its massive
  irrigation system laid the groundwork for serious
  future environmental problems.
• Key California crops had staggered harvest times
  and required a great deal of transient labor a
  steady supply of cheap migrant labor made this
  type of farming feasible.
• At first, migrants met hostility from old time
  Californians, but they stayed and filled
  important roles in Californias expanding economy.

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Mexican American Communities

• With fear of competition from foreign workers at
  a peak, many Mexican Americans left California
  and returned to Mexico.
• A federal deportation policyfostered by
  racismwas partly responsible for the exodus, but
  many more Mexicans left voluntarily when work ran
  out and local relief agencies refused to assist
  them.

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• Forced repatriation slowed after 1932, but
  deportation of Mexican Americans was still a
  constant threat and a reminder of their fragile
  status in the United States.
• Discrimination and exploitation were omnipresent
  in the Mexican community César Chávez, a Mexican
  American, became one of the twentieth centurys
  most influential labor organizers.

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• Many Mexican Americans worked as miners or held
  industrial jobs where they established a vibrant
  tradition of labor activism. For example, Bert
  Corona launched his career as a labor organizer
  with the International Longshoremens and
  Warehousemens Union in Los Angeles.
• Young single women preferred the higher paying
  cannery work to domestic service, needlework, and
  farm labor Mexican American women played a
  leading role in the formation of the United
  Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied
  Workers of America union.

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• Joining labor unions and becoming more involved
  in American politics were important steps in the
  creation of a distinctive Mexican American ethnic
  identity.

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Asian Americans Face the Depression

• Men and women of Asian descent constituted a
  minority that concentrated primarily in the
  western states.
• Despite being educated, Asians found relatively
  few professional jobs open to them, as white
  firms refused to hire them.

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• Asian Americans had carved out a modest success
  by the time of the depression, but a California
  law prohibited Japanese immigrants from owning
  land. Using devices including putting land titles
  in the names of their citizen children, most
  Japanese farmers held on to their land, and the
  amount of acreage owned actually increased.
• Chinese Americans clustered in ethnic enterprises
  in the citys Chinatown although Chinatowns
  businesses suffered during the depression, they
  bounced back more quickly.

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• In hard times the Chinese turned inward to the
  community, getting assistance from traditional
  Chinese social organizations and kin networks.
• Filipinos were not affected by the ban on Asian
  immigration passed in 1924 because the
  Philippines was a U.S. territory.
• In 1936, Filipinos and Mexican workers came
  together in a Field Workers Union chartered by
  the American Federation of Labor.

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• The Tydings-McDuffie Act declared the Philippines
  an independent nation, classified all Filipinos
  in the United States as aliens, and restricted
  immigration as aliens, Filipinos were not
  eligible for citizenship or most assistance
  programs.

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The New Deal Abroad

• Followed international course after initial
  flirtation with nationalism
• Established diplomatic relations with Soviet
  Union
• Good Neighbor policy with Latin America
• Reciprocal Trade Agreement
• Overreaching goal was to stimulate international
  trade and boost U.S. exports

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Stalemate, 19371940

• New Deal losing momentum by 1937 and 1938
• Court-packing fiasco
• Motivated by political purposes
• Protect National Labor Relations Act and Social
  Security
• Generated firestorm of public opposition
• Fueled critics organizing the 1938 midterm
  elections
• Rendered unnecessary, in any event, by subsequent
  events
• Recession, 19371938
• Economic improvements in late 1937 caused
  spending cut backs
• Economy slid back into depressed conditions
• Led to setbacks for Democrats in 1938 elections

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Federal Expenditures and Surpluses / Deficits
19291945
Web
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• The depression led to hardship for many
  Americans. Thousands had no jobs thousands more
  experienced downward mobility. Commercial banks
  had invested heavily in stocks and, as banks
  failed, many middle-class Americans lost their
  life savings.

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• Race, ethnicity, age, class, and gender all
  influenced how Americans experienced the
  depression.
• Blacks, Mexican Americans, and others already on
  the economic margins saw their opportunities
  shrink further and hard times weighed heavily on
  the nations senior citizens of all races, many
  of whom faced destitution.
• People who believed in the ethic of upward
  mobility through hard work suddenly found
  themselves floundering in a society that didnt
  reward them for their efforts.

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• The damage to individual lives cannot be measured
  solely in dollars the detrimental impact of not
  being able to provide for ones family was great.
  
• After exhausting their savings and credit, many
  families faced the humiliation of going on
  relief.
• Hardships left an invisible scar, and for the
  majority of Americans, the crux of the Great
  Depression was the fear of losing control over
  their lives.

91
What was the invisible scar of the Great
Depression?

• Many Americans suffered silently in the 1930s
• living on less income and accepting lower-paying,
  more menial jobs.
• The loss of identity that resulted from
  unemployment, moving to poorer neighborhoods, or
  accepting charity was also psychologically
  damaging for both breadwinners and their spouses.

92

• Sociologists who studied family life during the
  1930s found that the depression usually
  intensified existing behavior. On the whole, far
  more families stayed together during the
  depression than broke apart.

93

• Men and women experienced the Great Depression
  differently. Men considered themselves failures
  if they were no longer breadwinners, while
  womens sense of importance increased as they
  struggled to keep their families afloat.

94
Family lives on public relief funds (1936)
95

• The depression left a legacy of fear for many
  Americans that they might someday lose control of
  their lives again.
• The depression limited the success of young men
  who entered their twenties during the depression.
  Robbed of time and opportunity to build careers,
  they were described as runners, delayed at the
  gun.

96

• During the depression
• the marriage rate dropped
• the popularity of birth control increased,
  resulting in a declining birth rate.
• In United States v. One Package of Japanese
  Pessaries (1936), a federal court struck down all
  federal restrictions on the dissemination of
  contraceptive information.
• Abortion remained illegal, but the number of
  women undergoing the procedure increased.
• Margaret Sanger pioneered the establishment of
  professionally staffed birth control clinics and
  in 1937 won the American Medical Associations
  endorsement of contraception.

97

• Women workers did not fare well, but gender
  divisions of labor insulated some working women
  from unemployment.
• In the 1930s, the total number of married women
  employed outside the home rose 50 percent
  working women faced resentment and discrimination
  in the workplace, a sizable minority of women
  being the sole support of their families.
• Single, divorced, deserted, or widowed women had
  no husbands to support them. This was especially
  true of poor black women a survey of Chicago
  revealed that two-fifths of adult black women in
  the city were single.
• Many fields where women workers already had been
  concentrated suffered less from economic
  contraction than did the heavy industries when
  the depression ended, women were even more
  concentrated in low-paying, dead-end jobs than
  when it began.

98

• White workers pushed minorities out of menial
  jobs.
• Observers paid little attention to the impact of
  the depression on the black family, as white men
  and women willingly sought out jobs usually held
  by blacks or other minorities.

99

• During the depression, most men and women
  continued to believe that the sexes have
  fundamentally different roles and
  responsibilities and that a womans life should
  be shaped by marriage and her husbands career.

100

• The depression also had a negative and sometimes
  permanent impact on the lives of young people,
  whose career aspirations were often delayed or
  unfulfilled.
• Some of Americas young people became so
  demoralized by the depression that they became
  hobos or sisters of the road.
• College was a privilege for a distinct minority,
  and many college students became involved in
  political movements the Student Strike against
  War drew student support across the country.