1. The Great Depression

2. Before there was pain, suffering, migration, desperation, evictions, homelessness, heartache, and high unemployment, and the great crash…
How would you describe the Great Depression?

3. The picture looked like this

4. The 1920s: Years of Prosperity

6. Ford and his cars

10. …Signs of a trouble economy were everywhere...
Overproduction & Under-consumption
Unequal Distribution of Wealth
Failure of major industries (mining, manufacturing, clothing, agriculture, etc)
Americans lacks of savings
Over-dependence of credit, Margin Buying and Speculation
Inability of European nations to pay war debts

11. The Great Crash

12. The Market Crashes Market crash happened very quickly. September
Dow Jones Industrial Average, reached an all time high of 381.
On October 23 and 24
the Dow Jones Average quickly plummeted, which caused a panic.

13. Panic in the streets of NY

14. Panic on Wall Street

15. Black Tuesday
On Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, most people sold their stocks at a tremendous loss.
This collapse of the stock market is called the Great Crash.
Overall losses totaled $30 billion.
The Great Crash was part of the nation’s business cycle, a span in which the economy grows, and then contracts.

16. The Stock Market

17. “Speculation” causes many Americans to loose their life savings

18. Effects of the Great Crash, 1929
The Ripple Effect:
Great Crash
Investors
Businesses and Workers
Investors lose millions.
Businesses lose profits.
Consumer spending drops.
Workers are laid off.
Businesses cut investment and production Some fail.
Banks
Businesses and workers cannot repay bank loans.
Savings accounts are wiped out.
Bank runs occur.
Banks run out of money and fail.
Worldwide Depression
Overall U.S. production plummets.
U.S. investors have little or no money to invest.
U.S. investments in Germany decline.
German war payments to Allies fall off.
Europeans cannot afford American goods.
Allies cannot pay debts to United States.

19. For many Americans, whatever was left of their livelihoods, they had to claim immediately before that too was lost
So……….
Lines of people made bank runs, causing even more banks to fail as the first people there cleared out everything the bank held

20. Please, can I have my money… Americans making bank runs

21. The Human Impact How did the Great Depression Affect Americans?
“The Migrant Mother”
Credit: Photo by Dorothea Lange,

22. Hoovervilles People faced hardships
Unemployed laborers became homeless.
Hoovervilles- homeless built shacks of tar paper and scrap supplies

24. Hoovervilles

29. Farmers Suffered from selling crops at low prices (necessity)
Midwest called the “Dust Bowl”
Causes:
Severe drought
Over-farming removed protective prairie grasses
Combination creates dust storms
Result:
60 percent of families lose their farms.

36. Hoover help us…

37. The Government Response

38. Hoover’s Philosophy
“ I do not believe that the power and duty of the federal Government ought to be extended to the relief of individuals suffering…The lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.”

39. Assignment
With a partner, take 5 minutes to discuss Herbert Hoover’s statement regarding the care for American citizens.
Voice your opinion about Hoover’s statement by either supporting his position and explaining why using details, or by creating a counter-argument in favor of supporting American citizens.

43. Hoover did try to help…
He created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)
Prosperity at the top, helps economy as a whole
“Trickle-Down Economics” (Ice-cream Cone Theory)
Money given to banks, industries, railroads, insurance companies, etc.
Americans saw it as helping big businessmen/banks, while ordinary people went hungry.

44. …the help was not enough, as many Americans still suffered

45. Americans Pull Together
Americans helped those they saw as worse off than themselves.
Penny auctions-when banks foreclosed on a farm, neighboring farmers would bid pennies on land and machines, which they would then return to the original owners.

46. Election of 1932
Herbert Hoover(R)
Franklin D. Roosevelt(D)

47. The Election of 1932 Govt should not try to fix people’s problems.
Herbert Hoover (Republican)
Govt should not try to fix people’s problems.
Federal aid would teach people to give up and rely on the govt.
Seen as unwilling to help Americans and lost political support
Franklin Roosevelt (Democrat)
Govt had a responsibility to help people in need.
Sometimes “making it on their own” without any help doesn’t work and that’s OK!
Seen as the “Savior of the People” to many who were struggling

48. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) won the 1932 Presidential election by a landslide Electoral College Votes.

49. The Election of 1932
Here comes Superman

50. The New Deal FDR promised a “New Deal for the American people.”
Ready to experiment with government roles in an effort to end the Depression.
Track Record--FDR and his wife had worked to reform(improve):
public housing
state government
working conditions for women
unemployment

51. Signs of Change and the ever classic… Prohibition Is Repealed
February 1933, Congress passed the Twenty- first Amendment
This repealed the eighteenth amendment (prohibition)
The Empire State Building
About 4,000 people worked on the project.
It was the world’s tallest building at 102 stories.
Symbol of American ingenuity and strength.
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