"We in America today are nearer to the
final triumph over poverty than ever
before in the history of any land. The
poorhouse is vanishing from among us."



The Republican bosses did not want
Hoover to be the candidate
The public did – “Hoo but Hoover”
Democratic candidate – Al Smith of
New York, four time governor of New
York
◦
◦
◦
◦
a Roman Catholic
A “wet”
Nickname : the Happy Warrior
No high school or college



Radio plays a big part in the election.
Smith’s thick New York accent played
against him
Anti-Catholicism played a role in his
defeat. “A vote for Smith is a vote for
the Pope.”
Hoover didn’t like that and tried to get
people to stop using religion




Hoover wins in a landslide.
Former solid Democratic states such as
Texas, Tennessee, N. Carolina, and
Virginia voted for Hoover
Smith even lost New York
Hoover won because of the economy
and the good times.





An orphan and worked his way through
Stanford University
Became a successful mining engineer
and businessman (a self-made
millionaire)
Had never run for public office but
was a well known humanitarian
Strong believer in laissez-faire
Strong belief in self help



Passed the Agricultural Marketing
Act- a revolving fund of ½ a billion
dollars loan money to agricultural
cooperatives that bought, sold or
stored surpluses
Hawley-Smoot Tariff – designed to
protect farmers, but lobbyist changed
it to be the highest protective tariff in
peacetime history. Foreign nations
viewed this a economic war.
It will plunge the U.S. and foreign
nations deeper into the Depression
1.
2.
3.
Rising stock dividends.
Increase in personal savings.
Relatively easy money policy.
5.
Companies invested their over-production
profits in new production.
Lack of stock market regulation.
6.
Psychology of consumption.
4.





The U.S. economy looked unstoppable
when Hoover took office in March,
1929
People speculation on stocks was
near a bursting point.
Enormous wealth was actually paper
wealth
Triggered by the Brits who raised
interest rates in order to lure
investors back to their shores
Buying enormous amounts of goods on
credit



Federal Reserve, the nation's central
bank, played a critical, if inadvertent,
role in weakening the economy.
In an effort to curb stock market
speculation, the Federal Reserve
slowed the growth of the money
supply
Then allowed the money supply to fall
dramatically after the stock market
crash, producing a "liquidity crisis."


Consumers found themselves unable
to repay loans, while businesses did
not have the capital to finance
business operations.
Instead of actively stimulating the
economy by cutting interest rates and
expanding the money supply--the way
monetary authorities fight recessions
today--the Federal Reserve allowed
the country's money supply to decline
by 27 percent between 1929 and 1933.



October 29, 1929
16,410,030 shares
sold in a save my a…
move by people.
In less than two
months,
stockholders lost
$40 billion dollars
or more than the
cost of WWI to the
Americans


By 1930 four million Americans were
unemployed, in two years this would
triple.
Signs of the time - “ We’re firing, not
hiring”
“Mellon pulled the whistle
Hoover rang the bell
Wall Street gave the signal
And the Country went to hell”
 Over
5,000 banks collapsed in
three years
 Savings were gone
 Farms and homes foreclosed
 Psychological damage on
Fathers who couldn’t provide
for their families
 A decade long decline in the
birthrate

Unemployment and poverty

Breakdown of families

Soaring high school dropout rates (2 to 4
million)

Homelessness

Organized protests
 “I
do not believe that the power and the
duty of the General Government ought to
be extended to the relief of individual
suffering… The lesson should be
constantly enforced that though the
people support the Government the
Government should not support the
people.”
Going to Soup Kitchens for a meal
 Ragged individualist sleeping
under “Hoover Blankets”
 Fighting over the contents of a
garbage can
 Living in shanty towns called
Hoovervilles
 A farming peonage system starting
among Blacks and Whites





Langston Hughes wrote, “ The
depression brought everybody down a
peg or two. And Negroes had but a few
pegs to fall.”
Increased lynching in the South
Scottsboro Case
“It’s bad enough being black, why be a
red?”


Got Congress to delegate immense funds
for public works such as the Hoover Dam
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation
headed by Houstonian Jesse Jones
◦ Pump priming loans given to major
corporations
◦ The government eventually makes money
when these loans were repaid
◦ Had trouble first with a Republican
Congress that believed in rugged
individualism, then the Democrats who
swept into office in 1930 mid-term
elections



Many veterans of WWI were hard hit by
the depression
Former soldiers turned to the
government for help as the
government had turned to them in 1917
Congress had passed a bonus for the
soldiers that would be payable in 1945





In 1932, the veterans organized into
the BEF and marched 20,000 strong on
Washington
Set up a large Hooverville on vacant
lots.
The large numbers were to threaten
Congress into paying the bonus early
Congress narrowly voted the bill
down
Hoover convinced 6,000 to go home if
he paid the fare.



Following riots that killed two,
Hoover ordered the Army to evacuate
the crowd.
Hoover claimed that they were “Reds”
and riff-raff
Gen. Douglas MacArthur carried out
the eviction with bayonet and tear gas
and torched the shanties. A few
former soldiers were injured and an
infant died of tear gas poisoning
“Hoover happened to be in a bad spot.
The Depression had come on and there
he was. If Jesus Christ had been there ,
he’d had the same problem. It’s to bad
for poor old Herbie that he happened
to be there. This was a world wide
depression. It wasn’t his fault. In 1932
…. A monkey could have been elected
against him, no question asked.”
Marvin Devries






On the Great Plains, the top soil literally
blew away, piling up in ditches like "snow
drifts in winter."
The Dust Bowl produced unparalleled human
tragedy, but it had not occurred by accident.
The Plains had always been a harsh, arid
inhospitable environment.
Nevertheless, a covering of tough grassroots, called sod, permitted the land to
retain moisture and support vegetation.
During the 1890s, however, overgrazing by
cattle severely damaged the sod.




During World War I, demand for wheat and the use of
gasoline-powered tractors allowed farmers to plow large
sections of the prairie for the first time.
The fragile skin protecting the prairie was destroyed.
When drought struck, beginning in 1930, and
temperatures soared (to 108 degrees in Kansas for weeks
on end) the wind began to blow the soil away.
One Kansas county, which produced 3.4 million bushels
of wheat in 1931, harvested just 89,000 bushels in 1933.



Tenant farmers found themselves evicted from
their land.
By 1939, a million Dust Bowl refugees and other
tenant farmers left the Plains to work as
itinerant produce pickers in California.
As a result, whole counties were depopulated. In
one part of Colorado, 2,811 homes were
abandoned, while an additional 1,522 people
simply disappeared.
White Angel
Migrant Mother
by Dorothea Lange
Click the Speaker button
to listen to the audio again.
The Depression in Art
• John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel
The Grapes of Wrath told the
story of an Oklahoma family
fleeing the Dust Bowl to find a
new life in California.
• Steinbeck, like many writers of
this time, wrote of poverty,
misfortune, and social injustice.
(pages 538–539)
Click the mouse button or press the
Space Bar to display the information.