Lecture:
E- Causes of the Great Depression E- Hoover‘s Optimism E- The Hundred Days E- The
Second New Deal E- Eleanor Roosevelt and the Social Conscience of the New Deal
Cooperative Learning and Group Work:
H-Campaign songs and cartoons 1932- Hoover vs. FDR
R- Seminar style discussion of primary sources
E- New Deal document scramble
Texts and Sources:
Brinkley
E- The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
E- Selected campaign speeches Hoover and Roosevelt
Discussion/Debate:
R- Did the New Deal work? What legacies of the New Deal are still with us today? Did the
New Deal and America‘s response to the depression make our federal government too big and
too powerful?
Technology/Webquests
Student generated powerpoints explaining various alphabet agencies.
Outlines:
E- Graphic Organizers- The First and Second New Deals, Opponents of the New Deal
Writing Portfolio:
SE- Position Paper: Do you agree with the fundamental increase in federal power that
resulted from FDR‘s New Deal?
Letter to FDR
1
The
Great
Depress
ion
Goal 9
The Great Depression
• Essential Question: How did the American
response to The Great Depression change
the role of the American government?
• Students will be able to identify the major
causes of the Great Depression and
Hoover’s response
• Warm-Up: Complete Multiple-Choice
Questions through #
3
Overall Ideas
• The American depression was part of a global
depression. What do you remember about the
depression from WHAP or Global?
• The Great Depression had many different causes.
• Hoover and Roosevelt had two different philosophies
regarding the limits and powers of government.
• The legislation passed as part of the New Deal
represented the most government activity in American
history.
• Many laws and agencies still remain from the New Deal.
• Historians will forever debate how effective the New Deal
was in solving problems associated with the Great
Depression.
4
Election of 1928
-Herbert Hoover Elected
garage”
“Two cars in every
-20’s marked a reign of
prosperity
Hoover wants it to continue
-Hoover predicts the end of
poverty
“We in America are
nearer to the final
triumph over
poverty than ever
before…The
poorhouse is
vanishing among
us.”
--Herbert Hoover
Stock Market Crash
-Warning Signs
Speculation
Get rich quick schemes
Buying on Margin
pay a small percentage of the
stock’s price as a down payment and
borrowing the rest to pay later
-Stock prices were inflated
-Oct 1929 prices begin to fall
Everyone rushes to sell stock
Lose about $30 billion
- Oct 29, 1929 Black Tuesday Great Crash
The crash of 1929, and the Depression
that followed, dealt a crushing blow to
the hopes and dreams of millions of
Americans. The high flying prosperity of
the 1920s was over. Hard times had
begun.
In early September 1929, stock
prices peaked and then began to decline.
Confidence in the market started to waver
and some investors sold their stock and
pulled out.
On October 29-known as Black
Tuesday-the bottom fell out of the market.
People and corporations alike frantically
tried to sell their stocks before prices
plunged even lower. Those individual
investors who had bought stocks on credit
acquired huge debts when stock prices
plunged. Other investors, who had
invested most of their savings in the
market, lost their investments when prices
fell. The number of shares dumped that
day was a record 16 million. Additional
millions of shares could not even find
buyers. By mid November, investors had
lost $30 billion, an amount equal to
American spending in World War I.
New York Times Headline
Oct. 25, 1929
Causes of Depression
-Overproduction of goods
Too little demand
-Too much available credit
Depend on future income to pay
-less consumption of goods
People buying less
-farm surplus
Crop prices falling
-high tariffs
“The Big Bull Market was dead. Billions of
dollars worth of profits—and paper profits—
had disappeared. The grocer, the window
cleaner, and the seamstress had lost their
capital (savings). In every town there were
families which had suddenly dropped from
showy affluence into debt… With the Big Bull
Market gone and prosperity going, Americans
were soon to find themselves living in an
altered world which called for new
adjustments, new ideas, new habits of
thought, a new order of values.”
Foreign goods expensive-prices high
-no banking regulations
No money on reserve-no guarantee
on savings
- Hawley-Smoot Tariff, 1930
-everything became a chain reaction
Hard Times Hit Home
-Rural areas
foreclosure of farms, food
supply, Dust Bowl
-Cities
shantytowns, soup kitchens,
breadlines
-Family Life
men on the move, hardships
of women, health of children,
-Social effects
more suicide, mental illness,
dreams forsaken, ethics, hardwork
“I couldn’t imagine a financial disaster
touching my small world; it surely
concerned only the rich. But by the first
week of November, I too knew differently;
along with millions of others across the
nation, I was without a job. All that next
week I searched for any kind of work that
would prevent my leaving school. Again it
was ‘we are firing, not hiring’…”
During the 1920s, farmers from Texas to North Dakota had used tractors to break up the grasslands
and plant millions of acres of new farmland. Plowing had removed the thick protective layer of
prairie grasses. Farmers had then exhausted the land through overproduction of crops, and the
grasslands became unsuitable for farming. When the drought and winds began in the early 1930s,
little grass and few trees were left to hold the soil down. Wind scattered the topsoil, exposing sand
and grit underneath. The dust traveled hundreds of miles.
The region that was hardest hit, including parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and
Colorado, came to be known as the Dust Bowl. Thousands of farmers and sharecroppers left their
land behind, packed up their families, and headed west, following Route 66, to California.
“The dust is something fierce. Sometimes it lets up
enough so we can see around; even the sun may shine
for a little time, then we have a frenzied time of
cleaning, anticipating the comfort of a clean feeling
once more…
“Our faces look like coal miners’, our hair is gray and
stiff with dirt and we grind dirt in our teeth. We have to
wash everything before we eat it and make it as snappy
as possible…
“When we open the door, swirling whirlwinds of soil
beat against us unmercifully, and we are glad to go
back inside and sit choking in the dirt…
“A lot of dirt is blowing now, but it’s not dangerous to be
out in it. The dirt is all loose, any little wind will stir it,
and there will be no relief until we get rain. If it doesn’t
come soon there will be lots of suffering. If we spit or
blow our noses we get mud. We have quite a little
trouble with our chests. I understand a good many
have pneumonia.”
The photograph that has become known as
"Migrant Mother" is one of a series of
photographs that Dorothea Lange made of
Florence Owens Thompson and her children in
February or March of 1936 in Nipomo,
California. Lange was concluding a month's trip
photographing migratory farm labor around the
state for what was then the Resettlement
Administration.
“I saw and approached the hungry and
desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I
do not remember how I explained my presence
or my camera to her, but I do remember she
asked me no questions. I made five exposures,
working closer and closer from the same
direction. I did not ask her name or her history.
She told me her age, that she was thirty-two.
She said that they had been living on frozen
vegetables from the surrounding fields, and
birds that the children killed. She had just sold
the tires from her car to buy food. There she
sat in that lean- to tent with her children
huddled around her, and seemed to know that
my pictures might help her, and so she helped
me. There was a sort of equality about it.
The dust storms in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and
Texas were so severe that this region of the Great Plains became known as the Dust
Bowl. This was one of the greatest hardships-but only one of many- that Americans
faced during the Great Depression.
“Last weekend was the worse dust storm we ever had. We’ve
been having quite a bit of blowing dirt every year since the
drought started, not only here, but all over the Great Plains.
Many days this spring the air is just full of dirt coming,
literally, for hundreds of miles. It sifts into everything. After we
wash the dishes and put them away, so much dirt sifts into
the cupboards we must wash them again before the next
meal…. Newspapers say the deaths of many babies and old
people are attributed to breathing in so much dirt.”
Hoover’s Resolve
-Rugged Individualism
People responsible for
themselves
-created government agency to help
business recover
RFC –Reconstruction Finance
Corporation
Gave loans to businesses to
prevent business failure
Hoped businesses would then
help the people
-gave no direct relief to the people
Indirect Relief: Give money to states
and local governments to help the
people
Hoover’s Resolve
-”Two families in every garage”
-Hoovervilles
Towns of cardboard boxes
-Bonus Army March on
Washington
WWI soldiers want bonuses early
Hoover orders National Guard to
attack
-Radicals begin to develop
BONUS ARMY MARCHERS
Hooverville during the Great
Depression
The Bonus Army came to the nation’s capital to
support a bill under debate in Congress. The
Patman Bill authorized the government to pay a
bonus to WWI veterans earlier than promised.
Although Hoover opposed the bill he respected
the soldiers rights to assemble peacefully.
When the Senate voted down the bill, Hoover
called on the marchers to leave and although
most did, about 2000 remained. Hoover
decided the Bonus Army should be disbanded.
On July 28, a force of 100 soldiers came to
roust the veterans. A government official
watching from a nearby building recalled what
happened next.
“The 12th Infantry was in full battle dress. Each
had a gas mask and his belt was full of tear gas
bombs… At orders, they brought their
bayonets at thrust and moved in. The bayonets
were used to jab people, to make them move.
Soon, almost everybody disappeared from
view, because the tear gas bombs exploded.
The entire block was covered by tear gas.
Flames were coming up, where the soldiers
had set fire to the buildings to drive these
people out…Through the whole afternoon, they
took one camp after another.”
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"
They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Election of 1932
Direct Relief:
Gives money
directly to the
people from
the national
government
-Franklin Roosevelt elected
governor of NY
-Pledged a New Deal for the people
Help for the common man
-Democrats win great majority in
Congress
-Hoover remains a lame duck for
several months
20th amendment changed the
inaugural date for the president and
Congress
-Banking system was in a crisis
“Happy Days are Here Again”
So long sad times
Go long bad times
We are rid of you at last
Howdy gay times
Cloudy gray times
You are now a thing of the past
Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So let's sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again
Altogether shout it now
There's no one
Who can doubt it now
So let's tell the world about it now
Happy days are here again
Your cares and troubles are gone
There'll be no more from now on
From now on ...
Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So, Let's sing a song of cheer again
Happy times
Happy nights
Happy days
Are here again!
Exit Activity…
Pick one…
1. What economic practices helped contribute to the Great
Depression?
2. How did Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt differ in their
responses to the Great Depression?
3. In what ways did the New Deal increase government
responsibility in America?
4. How did the Great Depression change/impact the everyday
lives of American citizens?
5. What laws and government agencies are still in practice today?
25
Performance Task: RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT- Trace a new
deal agency to today
-Goal: To connect the New Deal to current events, To gain a
deeper understanding of the federal bureaucracy
-Role: Students will act as researchers and writers -Audience:
Teacher, Peer editors -Situation: Students will research and report
on a federal bureaucracy
-Product: Students will produce a 4-6 page research paper Standards: Paper Rubric, Peer Editing
-Description: Students will be asked to research a New Deal piece
of legislation and trace its evolution from the 1930‘s to today.
26