Hoover and The Depression

1
Hoover and The Depression

• Shantytowns
• Bread lines
• Dust Bowl
• Bonus Army

2
Signs of the Depression

• High rate of unemployment and poverty led to
  starvation
• The Depression saw the rise of soup kitchens and
  bread lines
• Offered free or low cost food
• Regular homes were replaced with shanties
• A large population of shanties was a shantytown
  (a.k.a. Hooverville)

3
Dust Bowl

• Drought spread throughout the Midwest in 1930
• Overfarming had removed hard soil that kept the
  dust down
• People moved west
• oakies
• Became migrant workers

4
What was Hoover doing??

• President Hoover believed that the Depressions
  were part of the natural economic cycle
• Saw govt as an assistant to business and labor
• Believed that people could succeed on their own
• Opposed federal welfare
• Saw as degrading

5
More Hoover

• Hoover was cautious about the Depression
• Created the Federal Home Loan Bank Act
  Reconstruction Finance Corp. to try to get
  economic benefits to trickle down
• By 1930 politics were shifting to Demos.

6
Bonus Army

• 10,000-20,000 WWI vets came to D.C. to support a
  bill that would give them bonuses that would
  make up for low compensation during the war
  (Pittman Bill)
• About 500
• Congress already approved the bonuses in 1924,
  but agreed to pay in 1945
• People wanted/needed the now!

7
Bonus Army cont.

• Hoover let them set up a shanty town within sight
  of the capital
• Hoover believed that the Bonus Army was filled
  with communists and criminals, not vets
• Pittman Bill dies
• Hoover ordered the Bonus Army disbanded

8
Bonus Army Before
9
Bonus Army

• 2,000 people didnt leave
• Fearing violence, Hoover sent in the real army to
  break up the gathering
• Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Major Dwight
  Eisenhower were in charge
• Tear gas used
• Bayonets used to move people along
• 2 people shot -- 11month old killed
• FDR believed this is what won him the election

10
Bonus Army After