“Every time we find solutions outside of government, we have not only
strengthened character, but we have preserved our sense of real government.”
~Herbert Hoover
Election of 1928
-Herbert Hoover
“Two cars in every garage”
• Republican candidate with little
“public office” experience
-20’s marked a reign of prosperity
• Years of prosperity under
Republicans Harding and Coolidge
-Hoover predicts the end of poverty
• Wins easy victory
• People happy with Republicans
“We in America are nearer to the final
triumph over poverty than ever
before.”
Herbert Hoover, the secretary of
commerce under Harding and Coolidge,
was a mining engineer from Iowa who
had never fun for public office. Hoover,
though, had one major advantage: he
could point to years of prosperity under
Republicans since 1920. He won an easy
victory promising a “chicken in every pot
and two cars in every garage.”
Stock Market Crash
• Visible sign of prosperity
-Warning Signs
Speculation
• Buying stocks/bonds on chance of
quick profit, ignoring risks
Buying on Margin
• Paying percentage of stock’s price
as down payment, borrow the rest
on credit
-Stock prices were inflated
• Stocks not reflecting companies’
worth – just paper
The American public thought the
economy of the 1920s was booming due
to a skyrocketing Dow Jones Industrial
Average, showing the growth of the
stock market to a high of 381 points. By
1929, 3% of the nation’s population
owned stocks. Seeds of trouble were
taking root: people were engaging in
speculation and buying on margin. With
easy money available to investors, the
unrestrained buying and selling fueled
the market’s upward spiral.
Stock Market Crash
-Oct 1929 prices begin to fall
• People afraid of losing profits,
begin to sell stocks
-Oct 29, 1929 Black Tuesday
Great Crash
• Mass-selling
• $30 billion lost in one day, sends
economy downward
“It came with a speed and ferocity that left
men dazed. The bottom simply fell out of
the market. From all over the country a
torrent of selling orders poured onto the
floor of the Stock Exchange, and there were
no buying orders to meet it.”
“In the strange way that news of a
disaster spreads, the word of the
market collapse flashed through the
city. By noon, great crowds had
gathered at the corner of Broad and
Wall streets where the Stock
Exchange faces J.P. Morgan’s…
“The animal roar that rises from the
floor of the Stock Exchange and
which on active days is plainly
audible in the Street outside, became
louder, anguished, terrifying. The
streets were crammed with a mixed
crowd—agonized little speculators,
walking aimlessly outdoors because
they feared to face the ticker and the
margin clerk…
The market seemed like an insensate
thing that was wreaking a wild and
pitiless revenge upon those who had
thought to master it.”
Causes of Depression
-Overproduction of goods
• Supply up, demand down, prices
fall; no world markets
-Too much available credit
• American debt rises, less buying
-less consumption of goods
• Rising prices, same wages, debt
-farm surplus
• Too many farm goods, prices fall
40% from war days
Causes of Depression
-high tariffs
• Cut foreign market for goods
-no banking regulations
• Banks could not insure money
-Hawley-Smoot Tariff, 1930
• Highest ever, prevented other
countries from buying our goods
After Black Tuesday, many Americans
rushed to the banks to withdraw the “real”
money they had left there. Unfortunately,
the banks did not insure their customers’
deposits, and the banks quickly went
bankrupt. Most Americans lost everything
they earned once the banks closed.
-everything became a chain
reaction
• Hits nearly every home in
America, eventually the world
Hard Times Hit Home
-Rural areas
foreclosure of farms, food
supply, Dust Bowl
• Lost farms due to debt; dust
storms ruined crops, killed
people
“[T]he 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 dust 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.”
~Dust Bowl Diary
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.”
Hard Times Hit Home
-Cities
shantytowns, soup kitchens,
breadlines
• Hoovervilles – junk shacks and; get
food from charity
-Family Life
men on the move, hardships of
women, health of children
• Men wandered searching for jobs
(“hoboes”); teens leave to help
families
-Social effects
more suicide, mental illness, dreams
forsaken, ethics, hard work
“Men who have been sturdy and selfrespecting workers can take
unemployment without flinching for a
few weeks, a few months, even if they
have to see their families suffer; but it is
different after a year, two years…three
years.”
Some men became so discouraged that
they simply stopped trying. Some even
abandoned their families.
“Welcome to Hooverville”
“I’ve lived in cities for many months, broke, without help, too timid to get in
bread lines. I’ve known many women to live like this until they simply faint in
the street…shut up in the terror of her own misery.”
“Here were all these people living in old, rusted out car bodies…There were people
living in shacks made of orange crates. One family with a whole lot of kids were
living in a piano box…People living in whatever they could junk together.”
~Shantytown visitor outside Oklahoma City
Many teenagers looked for a way
out of the suffering. Hundreds
of thousands of teenage boys
and some girls hopped aboard
America’s freight trains to zigzag
the country in search of work,
adventure, and escape from
poverty. These “wild boys”
came from every section of the
U.S., from every corner of
society. They were the sons of
poor farmers, out-of-work
miners, and wealth parents who
had lost everything. “Hoover
tourists,” as they were called,
were eager to tour America for
free.
Hoover’s Resolve
-Rugged Individualism
• People should succeed through their
own efforts, not the government
-created gov’t agency to help business
recover
-RFC—Reconstruction Finance
Corporation
-gave loans to businesses to prevent
business failure
• Help businesses, they will give jobs
and people will recover
“Mellon pulled the whistle, Hoover rang
the bell, Wall Street gave the signal, and
the country went to hell.”
~Popular slogan of the early Depression
-gave no direct relief to the people
• No cash payments or food given to
the people by the government
-”Two families in every garage”
-Hoovervilles
With his “rugged individualism”
viewpoint, many Americans blamed
President Hoover for their vast economic
losses and hardships during the Great
Depression.
Hoover’s Resolve
-Bonus Army March on
Washington
• Want bonus for WWI
service (money for vets)
-Radicals begin to develop
The Bonus Army came to the nation’s capital
to support the Patman Bill, which authorized
the government to pay a bonus to WWI
veterans who had not been compensated
adequately for their wartime service. This
bonus, which Congress approved in 1924, was
supposed to be paid out in 1945 in the form of
cash and a life insurance policy. The Patman
Bill would pay that money ($500 per soldier)
immediately.
In June, Congress voted down the Patman Bill. Hoover then called on the Bonus Army
marchers to leave. Most did, but approximately 2,000 refused to budge. Nervous that
the angry group could become violent, President Hoover decided that the Bonus Army
should be disbanded. On July 28, a force of 1,000 soldiers came to roust the veterans.
In the course of the operation, the infantry gassed more than 1,000 people. Two
people were shot, and many were injured. Most Americans were stunned and outraged
at the government’s treatment of the veterans.
"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?
“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!
Election of 1932
-Franklin Roosevelt
Who was he originally running mates with?
Governor of NY
• Battled unemployment and poverty with
a “can-do” attitude
-Pledged a New Deal for the people
Help for the common man
• Gov. responsibility to help, not rugged
individualism
-Democrats win great majority in Congress
Ready for a change, Americans elect
President Franklin D. Roosevelt. However,
Roosevelt did not become President until
March, which left Hoover in power until
then (with virtually no power). Roosevelt
used this time to devise a plan of
economic recovery, which he would
introduce to America as the “New Deal.”
• People dislike Hoover and Republican
policies
-Hoover remain a lame duck for several
months
20th Amendment changed the Inaugural
date for the President and Congress to
January instead of March
-Banking system was in a crisis
• Relief for needy, economic recovery,
The New Deal