The Great Depression and the New Deal

Industries in trouble – over production Farmers – McNary-Haugen tried to assist in their overproduction in being good farmers Less money and purchasing power Credit Uneven income distribution Stock Market All played a role in the US Great Depression and impacted the world wide depression

Margin: paying a small percentage of a stock’s purchase price and borrowing the rest. Some borrowed 75 to 90% of the stock’s price. Speculation: taking a chance on stocks in the hope that there would be a quick or large profit.

Oct 23 – Steady decline began in the market Oct 24 – “Black Thursday” collapse in the market but wealthy men such as JP Morgan, John D. Rockefeller bought heavily to stop the decline. Oct 29 “Black Tuesday” 16 million shares of stock were “dumped” millions of other shares were not bought. $30 billion dollars lost.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930) – protective tariff designed to protect American production from foreign competition OOPS! If we weren’t buying from them they had no money to buy from us and many countries enacted tariffs of their own.

Richest 1% income rose 75% between ’20-’29 US as a whole only rose 9% Top 5% earned nearly 1/3 of US income Bottom 40% earned only one-tenth of US income

A soup kitchen in 1931.

Soup kitchen to feed the unemployed in Chicago in 1930.

Was very concerned for Americans “We shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation”Hoover’s Inaugural Address BUT…. Inflexible – opposed govt welfare Govt should direct relief but not implement it. Bureaucracy Rugged Individualism – Pick yourself up, businesses and individuals.

Glass-Steagall Act (1932) – increased banking reserves and made it easier to get bank loans Federal Home Loan Act – lowered mortgage rates for homeowners and allowed farmers to refinance in order to avoid foreclosure. Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) emergency govt financing to banks, insurance co., RR, and other large businesses. Nearly $2 billion This was unprecedented. Hoover hoped that this money would “trickle” down to citizens.

Republican cartoon showing Hoover trying to solve the country’s problems, while the Democrats issue slogans.

Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF not AEF) 17,000 to DC to pressure Congress into passing Patman Bill. It failed. Anacostia Flats 2,000 stayed in DC even after Hoover offered to pay their return fares. Douglas MacArthur & Dwight D. Eisenhower

The main camp of the Bonus Army in 1932.

Bonus Army members fight with Washington, DC police.

Douglas MacArthur (right) directs the removal of Bonus Army marchers from their camp.

The Bonus Army camp in the Anacostia flats was burned after the marchers were evicted.

US Army soldiers stand guard over the burned out Bonus Army camp.

Election of 1932 –Democrats –Called for repeal of prohibition, cuts in govt spending, balanced budget, competitive tariff for revenue, unemployment and old age insurance, veterans pensions for service-connected disabilities –Anacostia Flats will, “get me elected”

–Republicans –Herbert Hoover: Continued to believe in the laissze-faire efforts of the govt. Platform stressed that prosperity was just around the corner, called for a reduction of public expenditures, a balanced budget, tariff expansion, gold standard, immigration restrictions, a revision of but not a repeal of Prohibition and veterans pensions for service-connected disabilities

Caricature of Herbert Hoover in 1932, as he was leaving office.

Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1920 when he was the vice presidential nominee for the Democratic Party.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: 5 th Cousin of Teddy, Struggled to overcome Polio. Helped to shape his character. Acceptance speech for nomination pledged “a new deal for the American people” The people had spoken as Roosevelt won nearly 60% of the popular vote.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt in 1933.

"Hundred Days“ Relief, Recovery, Reform "fireside chats“ “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. “Braintrust” to assist him in dealing with the economy, from NY

“bank holiday” prevented further withdrawls from banks Emergency Banking Relief Act Glass-Steagall Banking Act (1933) Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Up $5000 insurance for individual bank accounts (today it is 100,000) Securities Act (1933) Made companies liable for misrepresentations Securities Exchange Act (1934) Made insider trading illegal and prevented to “rigging” of the stock market.

Depositers gather outside this bank in April 1933 hoping that it does not fail.

Bank Failures,

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (1933) Harry Hopkins – money buys food but work instills confidence and self-respect Matched $1 for every $3 to states with their own relief programs. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) $30 a month $25 of which was automatically sent home. 11% African American program ended over 2.5 million workers went through this program. Civil Works Administration (CWA) provided Federal jobs Homeowners’ Loan Corporation – Loaned low interest money to homeowners who had trouble meeting their mortgage payments.

Civilian Conservation Corps “boys” after a day of work.

President Roosevelt visits a CCC camp in 1933

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) "Dust Bowl" Soil Conservation Service (SCS) “Okies”

Working a farm near Tupelo, Mississippi in 1936.

Soil erosion was a problem in many areas.

Dust storm in Elkhart, Kansas in (c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

Arthur Rothstein photograph of a dust storm in Oklahoma in 1939.

Aftermath of a series of dust storms, South Dakota, 1936

Grasshoppers

Rabbits

Dust storm in Springfield, Colorado in Black Blizzard Lawrence Svobida Readings – Farming the Dust Bowl: A First Hand Account from Kansas

A family of “Okies” migrates west in 1939.

Dorothea Lange photograph entitled “Covered Wagon Again,” shows Oklahoma residents leaving for California in 1935.

The Great Depression forced many to abandon their farms and seek work elsewhere. They were often called “Okies” because many had left Oklahoma.

Amundson family after leaving a drought stricken area of North Dakota in 1940.

Picking Cotton

The National Recovery Administration (NRA) eagle was a familiar sight in store windows and advertisements from 1933 to 1935.

NRA poster urging Americans to spend money to stimulate the economy during the Great Depression.

A & P grocery store advertisement indicating food prices in August 1933

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Developed the resources of the TN Valley Water for electricity

A dam constructed by the Tennessee Valley Authority

The Tennessee Valley Authority generated electricity for sale.

A 1934 cartoon depicting FDR and the growth of New Deal agencies.

“Explaining the New Deal” A 1933 chart showing the New Deal agencies and how they were meeting the problems of the Great Depression.

Bureau of Reclamation Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam) Grand Coulee Dam Bonneville Dam

Huey P. Long – text book Father Charles Coughlin National Union of Social Justice Francis E. Townsend

Social Security Act (1935) National Labor Relations Act (1935) Robert Wagner Holding Company Act Wealth Tax Act Rural Electrification Administration Works Progress Administration (WPA)

The red, white, and blue Works Progress Administration logo was one of the most familiar symbols of the New Deal. National Archives

Voter Participation in Presidential Elections,

Growth in Federal Civilian Employment,

Most benefited from the New Deal in terms of receiving relief/assistance but many were left out when it came to recovery and reform. The emphasis was on the “majority” in America

Mary McLeod Bethune – National Youth Administration Helped organize a “black cabinet” to advise Roosevelt Marian Anderson – Opera singer invited by Daughters of the American Revolution to sing. Eleanor Roosevelt arranged a performance at the Lincoln Memorial and resigned from the organization. Scottsboro Boys- Trial of nine young African-Am.for rape of two white girls.

Scottsboro Nine with Attny Sam Liebowitz from the International Labor Defense (ILD), an extension of the Communist Party of the US. Liebowitz represented the ILD but was a true Democrat and by many to be considered the next Clarence Darrow

African American families were hard hit during the Great Depression, as this farm family in Scott’s Run, Virginia could attest.

Street scene in Belzoni, Mississippi on a Saturday afternoon in Notice the mixture of horse-drawn and motorized vehicles.

The Great Depression hit African American tenant farmers hard, as this 1939 picture shows.

Farm laborers many had come to the US in the 20’s but many where here prior to the Depression. Mexico controlled the SW and CA until the Mexican cession of these lands. Pedro Martinez LA disc-jockey spoke out against discrimination and the government Workers were arrested b/c of Martinez announcement of labor need in the city

John Collier – Commissioner of Indian Affairs Indian Reorganization Act (1934) Responded to the Dawes Act in which the government could take over unclaimed reservation lands. Some reservation land was restored to tribal ownership. Criticized for hurting efforts to “Americanize” N/A

"Good Neighbors Policy" Reciprocal Trade Agreement (1934)

“Old Reliable” cartoon showing FDR as a big spender.

"Children in a democracy. A migratory family living in a trailer in an open field. No sanitation, no water. They come from Amarillo, Texas." By Dorothea Lange, November 1940 National Archives

The New Deal served the purpose of getting the majority of the country moving forward on the path of recovery. Giving relief and in some areas reform. However, as Americans became comfortable with the beginnings of economic recovery the chance of more reforms diminished and many Americans remained in poverty. Now relief, recovery, and reform would come out of war.