The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1929 presentation

About This Presentation

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1929

1
Chapter 25

The Great Depression and the New Deal, 19291939

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

3
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.
4

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.

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.

6
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?

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

8
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

17
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

18
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

19
Income Distribution Before the Great Depression
20
(No Transcript)
21
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

22
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.

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.

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.

25
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.

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.

27
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.

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.

29
Presidential Election, 1932
30

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.

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.

32
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

33
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.

34
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)

35
Bank Failures, 19291933
36
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

37
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

38
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

39
Tennessee Valley Authority
40
Federal Water Projects in California Built or
Funded by the New Deal
41
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

42
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

43
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

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

45
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

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.

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.

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.

49
Civilian Conservation Corps Workers
50

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.

51
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.

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.

53
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.

54
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.

55
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.

56
"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

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

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.

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.

60
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

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

62
Labor Union Membership 19331945
63
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

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

65
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

66
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.

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

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.

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.

70
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.

71
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

72
(No Transcript)
73

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.

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.

75
(No Transcript)
76

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.

77
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.

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.

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.

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

81
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.

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.

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.

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.

85
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

86
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

87
Federal Expenditures and Surpluses / Deficits
19291945
Web
88

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Write a Comment

User Comments (0)

About PowerShow.com

The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1929 PowerPoint PPT Presentation