Calvin Coolidge 1923-29
“The chief business of America is
business” expressed his concept
of the nation's destiny.
William Graham
Sumner, 1840-1910
The Presidential Election of 1928.
New York Governor Alfred E. Smith
(1873 - 1944)
Herbert Hoover 1929-33
UNDERLYING ECONOMIC WEAKNESSES IN A TIME OF APPARENT PROSPERITY:
The prosperity of the 1920s camouflaged serious weaknesses in the U.S.
economy. Agriculturists suffered from low prices, a fact that had been
mitigated by expanding production. Big business held down wages and
increased its profits at the expense of workers and the producers of raw
materials. Wealth was unequally distributed: 2 percent of the population
controlled 28 percent of the national wealth. The consolidation of money in the
hands of the few depressed consumer purchasing power and limited savings,
thus weakening most citizens’ ability to weather an economic downturn. By the
mid-1920s, the railroad, textile, and coal industries were in trouble, and housing
starts and automobile purchases had begun to decline. International trade
dropped as the U.S. policy of protective tariffs limited the growth of an already
weakened European economy. Consequently, European nations defaulted on
their international debts and withdrew investments from the United States.
Calvert, De León and Cantrell, 4th ed., 316.
Main Street, Cisco, Texas in the 1920s
Trade Days in Taylor, Texas, ca. 1920's
THE COLLAPSE OF THE STOCK MARKET ON OCTOBER 23, 1929. Heavy speculation in
the stock market in the late 1920s created an illusion of prosperity that disguised
both industrial weaknesses and a shaky financial network, and although only about
2 percent of all Americans owned stock, the market’s collapse on October 23, 1929,
exposed the nation’s economic weaknesses and threw its citizenry into a panic.
Calvert, De León and Cantrell, 4th ed., 316.
Bread lines during the Great Depression.
By 1932, at least one of every four American workers
was unemployed, median family income had dropped
by 50 percent, a hundred thousand businesses had
failed, corporate profits had plummeted from $10
billion to $1 billion, and the gross national product
was cut in half.
Calvert, De León and Cantrell, 4 ed., 316.
th
1929
1933
Banks in operation
25,568
14,771
Prime interest rate
5.03%
0.63%
Volume of stocks
sold (NYSE)
1.1 B
0.65 B
$45.5B
$23.9B
$15.3B
$2.3B
Privately earned
income
Personal and
corporate savings
Relief line waiting for commodities, San Antonio, Texas.
March 1939. Photographer: Russell Lee.
Countless thousands of honest, hard-working people lost their homes and farms
to the foreclosure’s hammer. Breadlines formed, soup kitchens dispensed food,
and apple sellers stood shivering on street corners trying to peddle their wares
for five cents. Families felt the stress, as jobless fathers nursed their guilt and
shame at not being able to provide for their households. Breadless
breadwinners often blamed themselves for their plight, despite abundant
evidence that the economic system, not individual initiative, had broken down.
Mothers meanwhile nursed fewer babies, as hard times reached even into the
nation’s bedrooms, precipitating a decade-long dearth of births. (The American
Pageant, 13th edition, pp. 761-762.)
Selling apples, Jacksonville, Texas. October, 1939.
Photographer: Russell Lee. Many tried apple-selling
to avoid the shame of panhandling. In New York City,
there were over 5,000 apple sellers on the street.
In the 1930s, countless thousands of
honest, hard-working people lost their
homes and farms to the foreclosure’s
hammer. The federal government responded
by paying farmers to leave their land fallow.
This policy helped to reduce the oversupply
of agricultural goods, but it also motivated
landowners to evict tenant farmers. Many
of these farmers then became migrant farm
laborers.
In the late 1930s, signs on Route 66 outside of
Tulsa, Oklahoma proclaimed:
NO JOBS in California
Oklahoma Sharecropper
Stalled on California Highway
(1937)
IF YOU are looking for work-KEEP
OUT
6 Men for Every Job
No State Relief Available for NonResidents
From 1930 to 1940, the number of
African American tenants in Texas
decreased from 65,000 to 32,000,
while the number of black farm
laborers rose by 25,000; some
20,000 other blacks left the state
for better job opportunities.
Squatters in Mexican section in San Antonio, Texas. House was
built of scrap material in vacant lot in Mexican section of San
Antonio, Texas. March 1939.
Photographer: Russell Lee.
Dust storm in the Panhandle, April 14, 1935. Prints and Photographs Collection,
Panhandle--sandstorm file, The Center for American History, The University of Texas
at Austin; CN 02655. In 1935 the Dust Bowl covered 100 million acres across the
western United States. Visibility in Amarillo that year dropped to zero seven times
during the first three months, with one blackout lasting eleven hours.
Dust Storm near Dalhart, Texas, 1936
Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas. Dust bowl surveying in Texas
Image ID: theb1365, Historic C&GS Collection. Location: Stratford, Texas.
Photo Date: April 18, 1935. Credit: NOAA George E. Marsh Album