The Great Depression

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The Great Depression
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1929-1939

• Stock market crash
• Didnt realize the effect it would have
• No money to replenish what was borrowed

Many found being broke humiliating.
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The Roaring 20s

• The new concept of credit
• People were buying
• Automobiles
• Appliances
• Clothes
• Fun times reigned
• Dancing
• Flappers
• Drinking

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Why was this bad?

• Credit system
• People didnt really have the money they were
  spending
• WWI
• The U.S. was a major credit loaner to other
  nations in need
• Many of these nations could not pay us back

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The Stock Market

• People bought stocks on margins
• If a stock is 100 you can pay 10 now and the
  rest later when the stock rose
• Stocks fall
• Now the person has less than 100 and no money to
  pay back

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And then.

• With people panicking about their money investors
  tried to sell their stocks
• This leads to a huge decline in stocks
• Stocks were worthless now
• People who bought on margins now could not pay
• Investors were average people that were now broke

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President Hoover

• Herbert Hoover was president at the start
• Philosophy Well make it!
• What He Did Nothing
• The poor were looking for help and no ideas on
  how to correct or help were coming

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What about the people?

• Farmers were already feeling the effects
• Prices of crops went down
• Many farms foreclosed
• People could not afford luxuries
• Factories shut down
• Businesses went out
• Banks could not pay out money
• People could not pay their taxes
• Schools shut down due to lack of funds
• Many families became homeless and had to live in
  shanties

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Many waited in unemployment lines hoping for a
job.
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People in cities would wait in line for bread to
bring to their family.
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Some families were forced to relocate because
they had no money.
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Hooverville

• Some families were forced to live in shanty towns
• A grouping of shacks and tents in vacant lots
• They were referred to as Hooverville because of
  President Hoovers lack of help during the
  depression.

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Hooverville
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Out of the Dust
The South and the Dust Bowl
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A drought in the South lead to dust storms that
destroyed crops.
The Dust Bowl
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The South Was Buried

• Crops turned to dustNo food to be sent out
• Homes buried
• Fields blown away
• South in state of emergency
• Dust Bowl the 1 weather crisis of the 20th
  century

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Two Families During the Depression
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A Farm Foreclosure
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Some families tried to make money by selling
useful crafts like baskets.
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FDR

• When he was inaugurated unemployment had
  increased by 7 million.
• Poor sections (like Harlem) had 50 of the pop.
  unemployed
• Instated the New Deal
• Yea! Frankie!

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• People everywhere were effected by the depression
• It wasnt till President Roosevelt took over and
  tried to put the economy back together that
  people even saw a glimmer of hope

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To Kill a Mockingbird
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Major Historical Happenings...

• Jim Crow Laws
• Scottsboro Trials
• Recovering from the Great Depression
• Racial Injustice
• Poor South

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Jim Crow Laws

• After the American Civil War most states in the
  South passed anti-African American legislation.
  These became known as Jim Crow laws.
• These laws included segregation in
• Schools -- Hospitals
• Theaters -- Water fountains
• Restaurants
• Hotels
• Public transportation
• Some states forbid inter-racial marriages

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• These laws were instituted in 1896 and were not
  abolished till the late 1950s (even then still
  not completely).

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Scottsboro Boys Trial

• 9 young African-American men (13-20) accused of
  raping 2 white girls in 1931
• Immediately sentenced to death
• Trials went on for nearly 15 years before all the
  men were dismissed

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• Started on a train bound for Memphis
• Several white men boarded and picked a fight with
  the black men
• Whites were forced off train by the 12 black men.
  The white men reported the the black men had
  raped two white girls on the train to authorities
• They were immediately arrested and tried in front
  of an all-white jury.

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The trials caused a huge uproar amongst the black
community.
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Harper Lee
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• Wrote To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960
• Based the story on her life growing up in
  Monroeville, Alabama
• TKAM was the only novel she ever wrote

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• The character of Dill, Scout and Jems playmate
  in the novel was based upon Lees actual
  neighbor, Truman Capote
• Capote is famous for amongst other things, In
  Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffanys.
• It has been said that he gave Lee Mockingbird as
  a gift.

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• In 1962 the novel was turned into a film starring
  Gregory Peck.
• It received a humanitarian award and several
  Academy Award nominations

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The End