1. The Great Depression
USII.6d Identify the causes of the Great Depression, its impact on Americans, and the major features of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal

2. What do you know about the Great Depression?
Answer the following questions on a sheet of paper.
What was an “Oakie”?
What was a “Hooverville”?
What was the new deal?
What popular game was introduced during the depression?

3. Answers
An oakie was a migrant farm worker from Oklahoma and other states in the “Dust Bowl.”
Hoovervilles were little one room shacks occupied by poor families during the depression, they were named Hoovervilles because they blamed President Hoover for their troubles.
The New Deal was an economic program to try boost the American economy and give hope to discouraged Americans.
Monopoly, it was thought that it would be fun to be rich enough to buy and sell property.

4. The Great Depression
Beginning in 1929, the United States saw one of the most dramatic upheavals in its history, in just a few short years the nation crashed from the prosperity and glamour of the Roaring Twenties to the desperate hardship and poverty of the Great Depression.

5. The Great Depression—the worst economic crisis in the country’s history—took a terrible toll on American society and culture, causing millions of people to be jobless, homeless, and starving for nearly a decade. Even today, nearly every survivor of the Great Depression can still recall the feelings of hunger and desperation.

6. The optimism of the 1920’s concealed problems in the American economic system and attitudes about the role of government in controlling the economy.

7. What caused the Great Depression, the worst economic depression in US history? It was not just one factor, but instead a combination of domestic (US) and worldwide conditions that led to the Great Depression.

8. Causes of the Great Depression
Many believe in error, that the stock market crash that occurred on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 is one and the same with the Great Depression. In fact, it was one of the major causes that led to the Great Depression. People over-speculated on stocks, using borrowed money that they could not repay when stock prices crashed.

9. Causes: continued
The Federal Reserve failed to prevent the collapse of the banking system.

10. High Tariffs discouraged international trade.
Causes: continued
High Tariffs discouraged international trade.

11. So, the causes of the Great Depression were:
People over-speculated on stocks, using borrowed money that they could not repay when stock prices crashed.
The Federal Reserve failed to prevent the collapse of the banking system.
High tariffs that discouraged international trade.

12. The Depression had a widespread and severe impact on American life.
2. One forth (1/4) of workers were without jobs (25%)
1. A large number of banks and other businesses failed.

13. Impact continued
3. Large numbers of people were hungry and homeless
4. Farmers incomes
fell to low levels.

14. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, used government programs to help the nation recover from the Depression
The major features of the New Deal included:
Social security
Federal work programs (such as Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation, and the WPA, Works Progress Administration)
Environmental improvement programs (Civilians Conservation Corps )
Farm assistance programs
Increased rights for labor

15. Duke Ellington

16. The Sack Dress
Chicken supplement came in cloth bags and some feed companies decided to put pretty designs on the bags. This was a great idea since we could make dresses from this fabric. It was a coarse weave but who cared. It was free. The last thing a man usually heard, when he walked out the door on his way to the feed store was, "Be sure to pick out a nice design.” Dresses weren't the only things made out of feed sacks. The white sacks were made into underwear, bed sheets, and table cloths.