Unit III

1
Unit III A Modern Nation

• Chapter 11 The Great Depression Begins
• Section 2 Americans Face Hard Times

2
The Roaring Twenties Come to an End 0253
3
The Great Depression Hits the United States
0324
4
Homeless People on the Road
5
Eating in a Breadline
6
Life in the Depression
7
Life in the Depression
8
The Great Depression in America 0430
9
Americans Face Hard Times

• The Main Idea
• The Great Depression and the natural disaster
  known as the Dust Bowl produced economic
  suffering on a scale the nation had never seen
  before.
• Reading Focus
• How did the Great Depression develop?
• What was the human impact of the Great
  Depression?
• Why was the Dust Bowl so devastating?

10
Causes of the Great Depression

• 1) The Stock Market Crash of 1929- a trigger.
• 2) Unequal distribution of Wealth. False
  prosperity (A maldistribution of purchasing
  power).
• 3) Overproduction and over dependence on mass
  production.
• 4) Unemployment
• 5) Speculation in Stock Market- buying on margin
  and cheap money
• 6) Banking crisis.
• 7) Trade collapse
• 8) Republican Party
• 9) Federal Reserve and Money system
• 10) Lack of diversification.
• 11) Post war deflationary procedures.
• 12) The Credit structure.

11
Great Depression by the Numbers

• After the stock market crash, economic flaws
  helped the nation sink into the Great Depression,
  the worst economic downturn in history.
• The stock market collapse strained the resources
  of banks and many failed, thus creating greater
  anxiety.
• In 1929 banks had little cash on hand and were
  vulnerable to runs, or a string of nervous
  depositors withdrawing money. Not all Americans
  invested but most all had money in savings.
• A run could quickly drain a bank of all its cash
  and force its closure.
• In the months after October 1929, bank runs
  struck nationwide and hundreds of banks failed,
  including the enormous Bank of the United States.
• Bank closures wiped out billions in savings by
  1933.

Today, insurance from the federal government
protects most peoples deposits, and laws today
require banks to keep a large percentage of their
assets in cash to be paid to depositors upon
request.
12
Farm Failures

• The hard times farmers faced got worse during the
  Great Depression, when widespread joblessness and
  poverty cut down on the demand for food as many
  Americans simply went hungry.
• By 1933, with farmers unable to sell food they
  produced, farm prices had sunk to 50 percent of
  their already low 1929 levels. Farmers
  overproduced, surpluses went up and prices went
  down.
• Lower prices meant lower income for farmers, and
  many borrowed money from banks to pay for land
  and equipment.
• As incomes dropped, farmers couldnt pay back
  their loans, and in the first five years of the
  1930s, hundreds of thousands of farms went
  bankrupt or suffered foreclosure. 1933- over
  364,000 foreclosures

Foreclosure occurs when a lender takes over
ownership of a property from an owner who has
failed to make loan payments.
13
(No Transcript)
14
Unemployment

• The year following the crash of October 1929 saw
  a sharp drop in economic activity and a steep
  rise in unemployment.
• Such negative trends are not uncommon in times of
  economic downturn, but the extent and duration of
  these trends made the Great Depression different.
• By 1933 the gross national product dropped over
  40 percent from its pre-crash levels.
• Unemployment reached a staggering 25 percent, and
  among some groups the numbers were even higher
• In the African American neighborhood of Harlem,
  for example, unemployment reached 50 percent in
  1932.

15
Development of the Great Depression

• Unemployment
• 1929-1930 steep rise in unemployment which would
  last a long time.
• 1933- GNP dropped more than 40
• 1933- unemployment was at 25.
• Black areas were higher- Harlem up to 50

16
The Development of the Great Depression

• How did the Great Depression develop?
• Explain- How did people with money in banks end
  up losing their savings?
• Design What could banks have done to prevent
  failure as a result of runs?

17
The Human Impact of the Great Depression
18
Welcome to Hooverville (0622)
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
The Human Impact of the Great Depression

• Thousands applying for every job.
• People begged from door to door.
• Soup kitchens and Bread lines.
• 1930s- no federal programs to provide food or
  money to the poor.
• Local Charities, municipal and state govt
  provided relief.
• 1932 on 1 in 4 families needing unemployment
  relief got any.
• People lost their homes- eviction and
  foreclosure.
• Hoovervilles- Shantytowns for the homeless.-
  Ramshackle, leaky and drafty
• No running water or electricity
• Unemployed males were idle and desperate.
• Emotional Toll- personal failure, pride, anger

22
The Human Impact of the Great Depression

• Hoboes
• Mostly men- unskilled migratory laborer, an
  itinerant and seasonal worker.
• Mostly white, American born, and able bodied.
• Hopped trains to travel from town to town-
  Illegal, dangerous and hired Bulls.
• Beg or stole food.
• System of sign language.
• Families sometimes broke under the strain of
  poverty and homelessness. Many left their
  families behind.

23
The Emotional Impact of the Depression

• The Great Depressions worst blow might have been
  to the minds and spirits of the American people.
• Though many shared the same fate, the unemployed
  often felt that they failed as people.
• Accepting handouts deeply troubled many proud
  Americans. Their shame and despair was reflected
  in the high suicide rates of the time.
• Anger was another common emotion, because many
  felt the nation had failed the hardworking
  citizens who had helped build it.

24
The Human Impact of the Great Depression

• What was the human impact of the Great
  Depression?
• Identify- Who provided relief to the poor during
  the Great Depression?
• Describe How did the Great Depression affect
  the minds and spirits of Americans?
• Make Judgments- Considering the dangers, why do
  you think some young men became hoboes rather
  than try to find a place to settle?

25
(No Transcript)
26
Devastation in the Dust Bowl

• Nature delivered another cruel blow. In 1931 rain
  stopped falling across much of the Great Plains
  region.
• This drought, or period of below average
  rainfall, lasted for several years, and millions
  of people had fled the area by the time it
  lifted.
• Agricultural practices in the 1930s left the area
  vulnerable to droughts.
• Land once covered with protective grasses was now
  bare, with no vegetation to hold the soil in
  place.
• When wind storms came, they stripped the rich
  topsoil and blew it hundreds of miles. The dust
  sometimes flew as far as the Atlantic Coast.
• Dust mounds choked crops and buried farm
  equipment, and dust blew into windows and under
  doors.
• The storms came year after year, and the hardest
  hit areas of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, New
  Mexico, and Texas eventually became known as the
  Dust Bowl.

27
(No Transcript)
28
Devastation of the Dust Bowl

• Great Plains Drought- 1931
• Dust storms
• brought on by years of careless agriculture
  practices.
• Wind storms stripped away topsoil and blew it for
  hundreds of miles.
• Drifts choked crops, buried farms and blew into
  homes.
• Dust Bowl

29
America in the 1930s The Dust Bowl 0102
30
Fleeing the Plains
31
(No Transcript)
32
(No Transcript)
33
(No Transcript)
34
Devastation of the Dust Bowl

• Migration
• Fleeing the Plains- Okies
• People quit, packed up and moved.
• End of 1930s- 2.5 million left.
• Headed west on Route 66 to California and migrant
  farm camps.
• Met by resistance and discrimination.
• Grapes of Wrath- book

35
Migration the Dust Bowl
417 min.
36
Devastation in the Dust Bowl

• Why was the Dust Bowl so devastating?
• Define- What was the Dust Bowl?
• Recall What caused the Dust Bowl?
• Evaluate Why do you think people in California
  were hostile to migrants from the Great Plains?
• Recall Who were John Steinbeck and Woody
  Guthrie?

37
Dust Bowl Farmers Migrate to California
250 min.