The Great
Depression
1929-1933
Semester One Research
Project
Jennifer Ortega
October: Wall Street Crash, marks
beginning of the Great Depression.
In early 1930, over 3.2 million
people were left unemployed.
1929
1930
Hawley-Smoot Tariff proposed by
Hoover becomes enacted in June.
February: Food Riots break out
nationwide and people begin to gain
resentment towards foreign workers.
Europe begins the feel the effect of
the Depression while it becomes
worse in the US
Japanese invade Manchuria after a
bridge explodes in a part of China
that Japan was controlling.
Hoover’s Agricultural Marketing Act
is passed
The Dustbowl begins in the Midwest,
devastating those people even
more.
1931
Interests rates for the Federal
Reserve go up.
1932
Stimson Doctrine is sent to both
Japan and China on January 7th.
Congress institutes the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation in January.
Farmers Holiday Association is
formed in Iowa.
In June, 20,000 members of the
Bonus Army march to Capitol Hill to
get their bonuses.
1933
Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated
and so begins the New Deal.
Election of 1932, Franklin D.
Roosevelt is elected by the majority
of the American people.
Timeline
The Effects of the Great
Depression
 Changed the relationship between Americans and the government.
 Put an immense fear of another Stock Market Crash in the minds of
Americans.
 Unemployment rate was over 20%
 Between 1929 and 1932 output declined by 40%
 More government regulations on banks
 International commerce declined
 Massive poverty
 Devastation of American Farms
 12,000 people became unemployed every day
 20,000 companies had gone bankrupt
 1,616 banks had gone bankrupt
 23,000 people committed suicide in one year
This is the floor inside the New York City Stock Exchange on the day that $13 million
dollars in shares were lost, Black Thursday.
Wall Street Crash
It was a cloudy Thursday morning when the “nightmare on Wall
Street” began. October 24, 1929 marked the end of the great
bull market that Coolidge had held together and marked the first
step of the rest of the economic collapse that led to the great
depression. By the end of the day there had been a loss of $13
million dollars in shares.
This graph shows
the steady
increase of the
Dow Jones
Industrial Average
to October where
you can see the
major decrease
after Wall Street
crashed.
Causes for the Crash
CAUSES:
The Unequal distribution of purchasing
power
60% of families couldn’t afford to buy
consumer goods such as cars and radios.
Those who were able to purchase goods
bought on credit.
International Trade decreased
The high tariffs put on American goods and
the European countries were already
struggling with paying back reparations
after World War I
Overproduction
Everyone who could afford the consumer
goods had already bought them, which
led to drop in prices, with led to the laying
off of workers because the companies
were trying to save money.
Country’s Credit Structure
Since crop prices were lowered farmers
couldn’t pay off their land mortgages
causing them to default on loans. Small
banks that depended on the agricultural
economy were in danger.
Buying on Margin
A practice that was soon made illegal after the
stock market crash because it was so
risky. Buying on margin was buying on
the promise of future shares. The
problem was a lot of the time those
shares never came.
Banks
Banks had been reckless in the years before
the stock market crash, making foolish
loans and making hasty investments in
the stock market.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Left: This shows people outside the Stock Exchange on the day
of the Wall Street Crash. Right: Shows speculators trying to
catch people and convince them that it is okay to buy stocks
even after the crash.
$$$$
GROWTH
BOOM
People have already
bought all goods, so
now there is over
productions which
causes drops in
prices and
employers to lay off
workers, less
sold=less $$ to pay
workers.
PRICES
FALL
JOBS LOST
People have jobs,
so they buy more
goods, so
companies make
more goods and
hire more people
increasing the
number in
consumers.
Depression Economy
The economy during the depression
was horrific. Nearly 9,000 American
banks went bankrupt or closed their
doors to avoid bankruptcy. This
caused a drop in money supply,
which caused a drop in purchases,
which caused deflation. With this
companies began to drop the prices
on goods and cut workers so they
could save money. In just three
years the American gross national
product declined 25 percent, along
with capital investment, consumer
price index and the gross farm
income. People were now being laid
off and experiencing cuts in
paychecks or hours.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Unemployment rates had reached an
all time low. The men in the pictures
gathered outside of employment
agencies for days in and days out in
hope of finding any job.
Moods of Despair
Not all Americans were affected by the depression but those who
were, suffered tremendously.
During this era, Americans believed that every man was
responsible for his own fate, and with that being jobless,
homeless or poverty stricken was a result of their own
personal failure. This put immense stress on men to get
themselves out of that situation, and find a job so they could
gain their masculinity back.
Families turned to public relief systems, but the high number of
families in need of relief caused for the relief systems to fall
apart. There was simply too many families and not enough to
go around
Thousands of people stood in breadlines just to have a good
meal, others chose to pick the scraps from the trash.
Below: A man stands outside of a building hoping
someone will offer him a job; men were under
tremendous stress to get themselves out of the gutter for
sake of their masculinity. Right: Breadlines in New York
City and Chicago stretched for blocks and served
thousands a day.
Hoovervilles
Families who
were left
homeless often
lived in shanty
towns called
“Hoovervilles.”
They built
houses out of
anything they
could possibly
find.
Agrarian Unrest
◊
But the Midwest had it
worst of all, not only had
farm income declined by 60
percent but a natural
disaster had hit them hard.
In early 1930 people in
Colorado, Oklahoma, New
Mexico, Kansas, and the Texas
panhandle, which became to be
known as the “Dustbowl”
experienced a decade long
drought.
◊ As a result many people
decided to head west to
California in search for
work. These people
were known as “Okies”
because most came
from the state of
Oklahoma. It is
estimated that hundreds
of thousands of families
left the “Dustbowl” to
find a better situation.
Left: A man in a dust storm, the ten year long drought not only caused
even more economic damage to parts of the Midwest but the dust
storms could cause even more damage. Right: Migrants on the side of
the road leaving the “Dustbowl” and headed towards California.
Above: a dust storm near
Oklahoma. Left: a father
and his two sons head for
their shelter to avoid
being caught in a dust
storm.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
The ten year
long drought
known as
the
“Dustbowl”
devastated
people in
Colorado,
Oklahoma,
Kansas, and
Texas
causing
them to
migrate west
to California.
Farm Foreclosures
Since farm income
had declined by
60%, farmers
couldn't afford to pay
their mortgages on
their land; the result,
farm foreclosures.
They weren’t
uncommon at all,
one in five farmers
had lost their farms.
Minorities & The
Depression
White people weren’t the only ones effected due to the depression;
African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans
faced harder challenges.
They all experienced unemployment, malnutrition and homlessness
but what they also experienced was more discrimination and
racism.
White Southerners began committing more racist acts towards
African Americans, blaming them for taking their jobs and
demanding that all white men get jobs before them.
Chicanos faced similar challenges. They were not allowed to attend
American schools or allowed to seek medical treatment.
Asian Americans who had attended college, found themselves
working at fruit stands and lost jobs to whites.
Bonus March
Veterans of World War I were
disproved legislation to pay them
promised to be paid $1,000
their bonuses. In mid-July
starting in 1945 but many
Hoover first ordered police to
veterans began to demand for
clear out some empty federal
their bonuses much earlier due
building that veterans were
to the economic situation. In
occupying, when the veterans
June of 1932, 20,000 members
reacted Hoover sent General
of the Bonus Expeditionary
Douglas MacArthur to use
Force or otherwise known as the
force to remove the veterans
Bonus Army marched into
from the Capitol grounds.
Washington and camped out in
Federal troops used tear gas
and around the city until
and fire to destroy the
Congress decided to pay them
makeshift camp they had built
their dues. Many remained even
near the Anacostia River.
after Congress
The Bonus Army on the steps
of Capitol Hill
Below is a picture of a Bonus Army camp.
Hoover-Stimson diplomacy;
Japan
Though it is called Hoover-Stimson diplomacy both men were very different in
their views on foreign policy. Hoover could have possibly cared less about
what was going on in Asia while the Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson to
stop Japan from invading China more than it already had.
The whole ordeal began in July of 1931 when a bridge in China, on the South
Manchuria Railroad blew up. At the time Japan was in control of the area
and blamed the explosion on Chinese rebels. In turn, Japan used this as an
excuse to begin their conquest of Manchuria.
Stimson tried to tell Japan not to ignore the treaties it had signed and stop
expanding into China with the Stimson Doctrine. Stimson wanted European
countries to back him up but no one wanted to/cared enough.
No one took Stimson seriously, seeing all this occur with little reaction only
encouraged Hitler and Mussolini to do in what events soon followed the
great depression
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
This political cartoon is showing how Japan completely
ignored the international treaties it was bounded by and
continued with their invasion of China.
Hoover’s Growing Unpopularity and the
Election of 1932
QuickTime™ and a
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• Hoover’s Inaction and
laissez-faire philosophy had
him loosing popular votes for
quite some time and the
incident with the Bonus Army
is what completely lost all
chances for his reelection.
As can be seen the election
of 1932 was not a tight one.
Franklin D. Roosevelt won
by a landslide.
Conclusion
The Great Depression was the worst
economic time in the history of the
modern world, it left millions upon
millions jobless, homeless, and
starving. Through the Great
Depression we can learn how to
prevent such occurrences from
happening again, or at least how
to lessen the impact.