THE GREAT DEPRESSION (1920–1940)
The Great Depression was steeper and more protracted in the United States than in
other industrialized countries. The unemployment rate rose higher and remained
higher longer than in any other western country. As it deepened, the Depression had
far-reaching political consequences. The Depression vastly expanded the scope and
scale of the federal government and created the modern welfare state. It gave rise
to a philosophy that the federal government should provide a safety net for the
elderly, the jobless, the disabled, and the poor, and that the federal government was
responsible for ensuring the health of the nation's economy and the welfare of its
citizens.
The stock market crash of October 1929 brought the economic prosperity of the
1920s to a symbolic end. For the next ten years, the United States was mired in a
deep economic depression. By 1933, unemployment had soared to 25 percent, up
from 3.2 percent in 1929. Industrial production declined by 50 percent, international
trade plunged 30 percent, and investment fell 98 percent.
Causes of the Depression
Causes of the Great Depression included: insufficient purchasing power among the
middle class and the working class to sustain high levels of production; falling crop
and commodity prices prior to the Depression; the stock market's dependence on
borrowed money; and wrongheaded government policies, including high tariffs that
reduced international trade and contracted the money supply.
Political and Social Consequences
The Great Depression transformed the American political and economic landscape. It
produced a major political realignment, creating a coalition of big-city ethnics,
African Americans, organized labor, and Southern Democrats committed, to varying
degrees, to interventionist government. It strengthened the federal presence in
American life, spawning such innovations as national old-age pensions,
unemployment compensation, aid to dependent children, public housing, federallysubsidized school lunches, insured bank depositions, the minimum wage, and stock
market regulation. It fundamentally altered labor relations, producing a revived labor
movement and a national labor policy protective of collective bargaining. It
transformed the farm economy by introducing federal price supports. Above all, it led
Americans to view the federal government as an agency of action and reform and
the ultimate protector of public well-being.
The Great Depression and American Culture
The Great Depression challenged certain basic precepts of American culture,
especially the faith in individual self-help, business, the inevitability of progress, and
limited government. The Depression encouraged a search for the real America. There
was a new interest in “the people,” in regional cultures, and in folk traditions. The
movies played a crucial role in sustaining American ideals in a time of social
upheaval across Europe. Films projected images of a world in which financial success
was possible and of a society in which class barriers could be overcome.
This section examines why the seemingly boundless prosperity of the 1920s ended
so suddenly and why the Depression lasted as long as it did. It assesses the
Depression's human toll and the policies adopted to combat the crisis. It devotes
particular attention to the Depression's impact on African Americans, the elderly,
Mexican Americans, labor, and women. In addition to assessing the ideas that
informed the New Deal policies, this chapter examines the New Deal’s critics and
evaluates the New Deal's impact.
THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS AND THEIR TRIAL
The Scottsboro Boys were nine young black men, falsely accused of raping two white
women on board a train near Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931. Convicted and facing
execution, the case of Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, Olen
Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson, Eugene Williams, and Andrew and
Leroy Wright sparked international demonstrations and succeeded in both
highlighting the racism of the American legal system and in overturning the
conviction.
On March 25, 1931, nine unemployed young black men, illegally riding the rails and
looking for work, were taken off a freight train at Scottsboro, Alabama and held on a
minor charge. The Scottsboro deputies found two white women, Ruby Bates and
Victoria Price, and pressured them into accusing the nine youths of raping them on
board the train. The charge of raping white women was an explosive accusation, and
within two weeks the Scottsboro Boys were convicted and eight sentenced to death,
the youngest, Leroy Wright at age 13, to life imprisonment.
The American Communist Party (CP), in this period at the height of its organizing
focus in the American South against racism and economic exploitation, immediately
took the case on, and largely through activist efforts, sparked a mass defense
movement. The CP brought in their legal arm, the International Labor Defense (ILD)
to represent the nine. After two trials in which an all-white jury, fueled by a biased
Alabama press, convicted the nine, the ILD and the CP began a national protest
campaign to overturn the conviction, marked by numerous street marches, national
and international speaking tours, and popular songs. Because of their principled
leadership in the campaign, the CP gained much widespread respect among African
Americans and civil rights activists. When they traveled to Washington, D.C. to
demonstrate, the CP stopped at segregated restaurants to stage sit-ins against
discrimination, helping to turn the campaign into a trial of the system of segregation
and racism in America, presaging the sit-in tactics of the 1960s civil rights
movement.
Although initially hostile to the Communists and wary of being involved in the touchy
issue of black men raping white women, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) ultimately joined with the CP and other civil
rights organizations to form the Scottsboro Defense Committee. Eventually, one of
the white women, Ruby Bates, came forward to repudiate her testimony,
acknowledging that she and Price had been pressured into falsely accusing the
Scottsboro Boys, and she became part of the campaign to save their lives.
The case went to the United States Supreme Court in 1937, and the lives of the nine
were saved, though it was almost twenty years before the last defendant was freed
from prison. The trial of the Scottsboro Boys is perhaps one of the proudest
moments of American radicalism, in which a mass movement of blacks and whites—
led by Communists and radicals—successfully beat the Jim Crow legal system.
CIVIL RIGHTS AND “JIM CROW”
Summary and Definition: The Jim Crow Laws were statutes enacted by Southern
states, beginning in the 1880s that legalized segregation between African Americans
and whites. The Jim Crow laws restricted the rights of African Americans to use
public facilities, schools, to vote, to find decent employment, basically excluding
African Americans from exercising their rights as citizens of the United States.
Jim Crow Laws: Who was Jim Crow?
The name referred to in the Jim Crow Laws was derived from a very famous and
popular minstrel act of the era. The Jim Crow character is depicted on your right and
the picture is taken from the sheet music of a song called 'Jump Jim Crow'.
The character of 'Jim Crow' was rooted in black African culture. Like Kokopelli in
Native American culture, mythical creatures also appeared as shape-shifting
Tricksters in the myths and legends of the African people. In the Yoruba culture of
Nigeria and West African countries such as Sierra Leone, the Trickster is depicted as
a shape-shifting crow named "Jim."
Who was Jim Crow? Made world famous by Thomas D. Rice
The American performer and variety act who made the character 'Jim Crow' famous
was called Thomas D. Rice (1808 – 1860). Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice
blackened his skin by applying burnt cork, wore tattered clothes and performed a
song and dance minstrel act. His minstrel song and dance featuring the song 'Jump
Jim Crow' was a sensation and Rice became famous across America and in England.
The extent of his fame was reflected in the Boston Post which reported in 1838 that,
"the two most popular characters in the world at the present time are [Queen]
Victoria and Jim Crow."
What was the purpose of the Jim Crow Laws?
Variations of different Jim Crow Laws were implemented from state to state but they
all had the same aims and goals - the keep black African Americans segregated from
white Americans.
TRUMAN CAPOTE