Unit 8, Pt. 3 (Ch. 22-23) Notes:
The Great Depression & The New Deal
U.S. History & The Constitution
Daily “Bell Ringer” Warm Up
3rd Nine Weeks
Bell Ringer #8 (5 & 6 Mar)
8.) Which of the following best summarizes what the writers, artists, & poets
of the Harlem Renaissance stressed in their works?
a.) Endorsing the use of aggressive tactics to combat “Jim Crow”.
b.) Recruiting more southern sharecroppers to move to northern cities.
c.) Showing pride in the culture of African Americans.
d.) Extending the suffrage rights of all African Americans.
CORRECT ANSWER: C
Today’s Lesson Standard / Indicator
Standard USHC-6: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the
conflict between traditionalism & progressivism in the 1920s & the economic
collapse & the political response to the economic crisis in the 1930s.
USHC-6.3: Explain the causes & consequences of the Great Depression,
including the disparities in income & wealth distribution; the collapse of the
farm economy & the effects of the Dust Bowl; limited governmental
regulations; taxes, investment, & stock market speculation; policies of the
federal government & the federal reserve system; & the effects of the
Depression on the people.
22.1: The Nation’s Sick Economy
- Stock market crash - not the cause of the Great Depression - rather
an outward sign of long term problems within the economy.
- Crash = signaled start of the Depression; it evolved over a period
of years spiraling deeper & deeper until massive government spending
during World War II finally ended it.
- Economy’s underlying problems: 1.) declining demand & 2.) overproduction.
- 1920s seemed prosperous with
high employment rates & almost no
inflation.
- Industrial production & per capita
income were both up, however, this
was a false prosperity.
22.1: The Nation’s Sick Economy
- A disparity in incomes & the distribution of wealth was very large & uneven.
- Haves vs. Have Nots (majority)
- Great majority of Americans lived below the poverty line ($2500 in 1929)
- Wages for most workers fell or stagnated during the 1920s, despite
increasing productivity.
- Companies did not pass their
prosperity to their employees &
workers could not afford to buy the
products they manufactured. When
consumers reached their limit of
installment payments, they had to
stop spending.
- Drop in consumer spending led
to lay-offs & inability for workers to
spend.
22.1: The Nation’s Sick Economy
- Farm economy collapsed in the 1920s.
- Farmers who had prospered in the war years faced international competition
& depressed prices as well as debts & taxes.
- Farmers defaulted on bank loans = many banks failed before the crash.
- Bank failures, in turn, limited
the number of loans available for
small businesses = could not
expand & hire.
22.1: The Nation’s Sick Economy
- Under the Republican administrations, the federal government abandoned
its previous policy of progressivism & limited government regulation of Big
Business (Sherman Anti-Trust Act & trustbusting of Teddy Roosevelt).
- Laissez-faire attitude = corporations became powerful & tariffs were raised.
- Supreme Court overturned
limitations on child labor &
minimum wage laws for women.
22.1: The Nation’s Sick Economy
- Income taxes for the wealthy were slashed = didn’t help economy.
- Wealthy bought luxury goods & could not make up for the loss of spending
power of the great majority of the people.
- Their tax savings were put into investments in the stock market rather than in
new factories = limited demand for goods.
- Stock market investments drove
up speculation in businesses that
couldn’t sustain profitability in the
face of lagging consumer demand.
22.1: The Nation’s Sick Economy
- End of the 1920s = businesses cut back production = resulted in excessive
inventories.
- Companies invested their money in stock market speculation rather than in
production.
- Investors, noting the large inventories, began to reconsider their investments.
- Stock market speculation & “get rich quick” mentality led to inflated stock
values & a crash.
22.1: The Nation’s Sick Economy
- Stock market was not regulated; investors were allowed to buy on the margin
(allowed to borrow on the paper value of their stock in order to buy more stock)
- An unusual number of sell orders kicked the bottom out of the market in
October of 1929, & brokerage firms called in their margin loans.
- Investors were forced to sell at low prices in order to meet their obligations &
as a result stock prices plunged.
- Although prominent bankers helped
to prop up the market for several days,
public confidence was shattered.
22.1: The Nation’s Sick Economy
- “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929: the greatest market “crash” in its history
- An event that symbolized the end of the false prosperity of the 1920s.
- Economy spiraled deep into a depression
made worse by poor decisions of individual
companies, consumers, investors, & by the
policies of the Federal Reserve.
22.1: The Nation’s Sick Economy
- Federal Reserve (est.1913) = nation’s central bank: has capacity to regulate
the money supply by making loans to banks, which then make loans to
businesses, which hire workers, who buy products.
- Early 1920s: the Fed. Reserve pursued easy credit policies.
- Charged low interest rates on loans to member
banks = helped fuel speculation mania.
- Late 1920s: the Fed. Reserve initiated a tight money
strategy to try & curb speculation.
- The Fed discouraged lending by charging higher
Interest rates for their loans.
- Post-crash: Fed tightened the money supply
more, thus making it even harder to limit effects of
the crash.
- If the Fed had cut interest rates & expanded the
money supply, the Depression may not have been
as intense or long lasting.
End of 22.1 Notes
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
- Government policies did little to halt the downward spiral of the economy.
- 1930: Congress passed a high tariff In an effort to protect American
industries from foreign competition.
- Taxes on imports damaged the economy (depressed international trade).
- Foreigners were unable to sell goods in
US markets =could not buy American products.
- Foreign nations reacted & imposed trade
barriers of their own, stifling international
trade that further increased the depressed
condition of the world’s economies.
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
- Pres. Herbert Hoover urged companies to voluntarily maintain wages &
hours = impossible in the face of low consumer demand.
- Companies laid-off workers & cut hours.
- Hoover advocated the American value of
“rugged individualism”, urged confidence,
& announced that “prosperity is just around
the corner.”
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
- Great Depression = worst economic disaster to ever hit the U.S.
- U.S. had a 25% unemployment rate & no system of unemployment insurance
like other western countries.
- People were unable to pay mortgages or rent = lost homes & wandered the
streets, going from town to town looking for a job or selling apples or pencils
door to door.
- Job wages & hours were cut.
- Those with jobs stopped buying
anything but the most essential
goods = prices fell further.
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
The Irony
of the
Great Depression
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
Life in a “Hooverville”
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
- Bank “runs” = people tried to withdraw their savings out of fear that the bank
would close taking their savings with it.
- “Runs” often caused banks to collapse & many investors lost their savings as
a result.
- Many were undernourished.
- Schools closed as
communities couldn’t pay
teachers; many teachers
worked for nothing.
- Depression took a terrific toll
on families.
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
- Marriages were delayed & the birthrate fell.
- Divorce rates declined, but many men abandoned their families.
- Unemployed men lost status & women & children were forced to work & find
whatever small job might feed their families.
- States & private charities couldn’t stop the Depression’s suffering
- People looked to the federal government for solutions.
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
- Dust Bowl affected the western plains & caused additional human tragedy.
- The plain’s fragile environment had been damaged by overgrazing.
- During WWI, farmers plowed the plains & planted wheat = ruined the sod that
held the soil.
- 1930s drought & winds blew away the top soil.
- Tenant farmers were evicted from the land & became migrant workers,
roaming the country in search of work
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
The Dust Bowl
22.2: Hardship & Suffering During the Depression
& 22.3: Hoover Struggles With the Depression
- In the election of 1932, the American people demanded help from their
government.
End of 22.2 & 22.3 Notes
Depression Documents Activity
Depression Documents
“Migrant Mother”
Dorothea Lange’s
“Migrant Mother” Picture Series.
- February or March 1936
I saw & approached the hungry & 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 &
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, & birds that the children killed.
She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that leanto tent with her children huddled around her, & seemed to know that my
pictures might help her, & so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about
it. (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).
“Migrant Mother”
“Migrant Mother”
“Migrant Mother”
Depression Documents
Depression Documents
Depression Documents
Depression Documents
Depression Documents
Depression Documents
Depression Documents
Depression Documents
“In the Big Rock Candy Mountains”
by Harry McClintock
One evening as the sun went down
And the jungle fires were burning,
Down the track came a hobo hiking,
And he said, "Boys, I'm not turning
I'm headed for a land that's far away
Besides the crystal fountains
So come with me, we'll go and see
The Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There's a land that's fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
And the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
All the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmers' trees are full of fruit
And the barns are full of hay
Oh I'm bound to go
Where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall
The winds don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
You never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol
Come trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew
And of whiskey too
You can paddle all around it
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
The jails are made of tin.
And you can walk right out again,
As soon as you are in.
There ain't no short-handled shovels,
No axes, saws nor picks,
I'm bound to stay
Where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
....
I'll see you all this coming fall
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
Daily “Bell Ringer” Warm Up
3rd Nine Weeks
Bell Ringer #9 (7 & 8 Mar)
9.) What natural disaster resulted in a many farmers (including tenants) to
leave their farms & move west to California in search of work?
a.) Great Migration
b.) Charleston Earthquake
c.) Great Depression
d.) Dust Bowl
CORRECT ANSWER: D
Today’s Lesson Standard / Indicator
Standard USHC-6: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the
conflict between traditionalism & progressivism in the 1920s & the economic
collapse & the political response to the economic crisis in the 1930s.
USHC-6.4: Analyze President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as a response
to the economic crisis of the Great Depression, including the effectiveness of
New Deal programs in relieving suffering & achieving economic recovery, in
protecting the rights of women & minorities, & in making significant reforms to
protect the economy such as Social Security & labor laws.
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- New Deal was not an attempt to introduce socialism in the U.S.
- Some historians argue that New Deal policies saved capitalism
- New Deal policies alleviated some suffering & offered hope to Americans,
but did not solve the Depression’s economic problems.
- Government spending during World War II ended the Depression.
- Effect of New Deal reforms: U.S. hasn’t suffered another economic depression.
of the magnitude of the Great Depression.
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- New Deal - consisted of two phases (first New Deal & second New Deal).
- First New Deal = the First Hundred Days attempted to stabilize the
economy, help it recover & relieve human suffering.
- It included some successful & enduring reforms.
Unit 9.3 Great Depression & New Deal
New Deal “Alphabet Soup”
Small Group Activity
Unit 9.3 Great Depression & New Deal
New Deal “Alphabet Soup”
Your group is to include the following in your alphabet soup bowl:
1.) Initials for your New Deal Program “floating” in the bowl – (i.e. TVA)
2.) The full title of your New Deal Program on the inside rim of your bowl (i.e.
Tennessee Valley Authority)
3.) The year that your program was established (& 1st or 2nd New Deal).
4.) Descriptive symbols/picture that emphasize the purpose of your program
(either floating in the bowl or around the bowl itself).
5.) Minimum of 3 bullet statements describing:
- Purpose of the program.
- Who it did/did not help.
- Successes/failures of the program.
- Lasting contributions.
- Your group will present your bowls
to the class.
Great Depression & New Deal
Alphabet Agencies’
“Alphabet Soup”
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- Banks closed (bank holiday) & stopped the escalating collapse of the
banking industry.
- Roosevelt’s first fireside chat encouraged people to trust banks = when
banks reopened, the panic had subsided.
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC): government insurance of
bank deposits built confidence in the banks’ security.
- Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC):
Stock market regulations put in place to
prevent the conditions that led to the crash.
- Federal government sent millions
of dollars to the states for relief, using
deficit spending to boost the
economy & ‘prime the pump.’
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA): farmers were paid government subsidies
to not plant so many crops (addressed overproduction & low prices).
- Program stabilized prices & raised farm income, but hurt sharecroppers &
tenant farmers by taking some farm land out of production.
- Rural Electrification Act (REA): brought electricity to the countryside.
- Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA): built dams to generate electricity in 7 states
= created thousands of jobs & stimulated the economy.
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC): unemployed young men were given work
in the nations’ parks. Other programs built bridges, hospitals, schools &
airfields.
- Works Progress Administration (WPA): cultural programs provided work for
writers, artists, & actors & established the precedent for federal support of the
arts.
- Job creation programs put people to work, alleviated despair & economic
hardship, & pumped some money into the economy, but… the New Deal did not
result in economic recovery.
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- Second New Deal: response to criticism of the New Deal from conservatives
& liberals & rulings by the Supreme Court that struck down some New Deal
programs.
- Political Right’s (Republicans) criticism = New Deal was too expensive &
socialist.
- F.D.R. = accused of taking too much
power for the government & executive
branch; critics compared him to fascist
leaders in Europe.
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- Conservative Supreme Court undermined New Deal programs.
- Struck down National Recovery Administration (NRA) program designed
to help the economy stabilize & recover by making codes of fair
practices written by business, labor & government representatives.
- Declared (NRA) program unconstitutional.
- Court struck down the right of labor unions to organize & bargain collectively
for workers & minimum wage & maximum hour provisions.
-Court also struck down the
subsidies for farmers - Agricultural
Adjustment Act (AAA).
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- Court-Packing plan promoted a backlash (Republicans) against Roosevelt,
but the court did not overturn any subsequent New Deal legislation.
- FDR - criticized for the unbalanced
budget.
- Critics on the political Left claimed
Roosevelt wasn’t doing enough to
redistribute income & help the elderly
& poor.
- Labor unions demanded recognition.
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- Second New Deal: (1935) started with a Second Hundred Days - rejected
criticisms of the Right & responded to the criticisms of the Left.
- Placed emphasis on reform of the system while maintaining relief & recovery
efforts.
- Established Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
= minimum wage & maximum hours.
- Fair Employment Practices Act (Wagner Act)
= recognized the right of workers to organize
in labor unions & bargain collectively
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- Social Security Act (SSA) = national insurance established for the
unemployed, disabled, elderly & dependent children.
- Workers paid into the plan = protection against unemployment & for
retirement.
- Program did not cover all workers, but it became the most significant &
enduring part of the New Deal & impacted the poverty level.
FDR signing the SSA Act,
Aug 14, 1935
23.1: A New Deal Fights the Depression
& 23.2: The Second New Deal Takes Hold
- Social Security didn’t immediately aid recovery from the Depression = took
money from paychecks & didn’t make immediate payments.
- Critics cite the Social Security Act as evidence of
laying the foundation for excessive social welfare.
End of 23.1 & 23.2 Notes
23.3: The New Deal Affects Many Groups
& 23.4: Culture in the 1930s
- Af. Americans were affected by the privation of the Depression & by
discrimination & racial hostility.
- Last hired & the first fired. 48% of black workers were unemployed in 1933 &
were not protected by New Deal programs.
- Farm subsidies paid to landowners
hurt sharecropper & tenant farmers
(often African American).
- CCC = racially segregated.
- TVA gave skilled jobs to whites.
23.3: The New Deal Affects Many Groups
& 23.4: Culture in the 1930s
- Pres. Roosevelt attempted to address racial discrimination & consulted the
“Black Cabinet” = group of Af. American government employees (not Cabinet
members).
- Eleanor Roosevelt championed Marian Anderson against the Daughters of the
American Revolution = arranged for her concert on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial.
23.3: The New Deal Affects Many Groups
& 23.4: Culture in the 1930s
- Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) = commission established
to protect the rights of Af. American workers in wartime industries.
- Resulted in northern blacks voting for the Democratic Party.
23.3: The New Deal Affects Many Groups
& 23.4: Culture in the 1930s
- Women had to “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
- Had to find whatever work they could to help their families, despite job
discrimination (taking jobs away from men).
23.3: The New Deal Affects Many Groups
& 23.4: Culture in the 1930s
- New Deal didn’t address women’s problems = CCC was limited to young men
& other programs hired more men than women.
- National Recovery Administration (NRA) = allowed lower minimum wage for
women.
- Social Security Act failed to provide coverage for many women workers.
- Roosevelt did name the first woman to a cabinet level position & relied upon
his wife Eleanor for advice & information.
23.3: The New Deal Affects Many Groups
& 23.4: Culture in the 1930s
- New Deal was part of a pattern of reform movements in the U.S.
- New Deal recognized the role of labor unions & established minimum wage
& maximum hours standards (goal of late 1800s unions & the progressive
movement).
- New Deal - a continuation of the progressive reform & a precursor to the
1960s reform movement, including the civil rights movement & Great Society.
End of 23.3 & 23.4 Notes
End of Unit 9.3