1. DO NOW:
Silently write down as many things as you know or can remember learning or reading about the Great Depression!

2. Agenda: Day 46 (Half Way There!)
Do Now: Great Depression Brainstorm
Second Semester Clarifications and Reminders
MLK Violent vs. Nonviolent Protest Discussion
Common vs. MLK Dreams Analysis
Your Dream 3 Paragraph Homework Response
The Beginning of the Great Depression: The United States iPad Notes (9)
Notes Discussion
Homework Worktime

3. 2nd Semester Clarifications
Turning in homework
Cell phones
Classroom space
Use of materials
Classroom Expectations
Classroom Jobs
Classroom Website

4. THE GREAT DEPRESSION IN THE UNITED STATES: 1929 to 1939

5. Herbert Hoover as President
Hoover’s Agricultural Marketing Act, passed June of 1929, and tried to help farmers help themselves
It set up a Federal Farm Board to help the farmers.
In 1930, they tried to bolster sagging prices by buying surpluses.

6. Causes of the Great Depression
The Great Depression might have been caused by an overabundance of farm products and factory products. The nation’s capacity to produce goods had outrun its capacity to consume or pay for them.
Also, an over-expansion of credit created unsound faith in money, which is never good for business.
Britain and France’s situations, which had never fully recovered from World War I, worsened.
In 1930, a terrible drought scorched the Mississippi Valley and thousands of farms were sold to pay for debts.

7. Important to Note:
Contrary to common thought, the crash alone did not lead directly to the Great Depression!!!

8. The Stock Market Crash: Black Tuesday
Hoover predicted a quick end to poverty, but on October 29, 1929, a devastating stock market crash caused by over-speculation and overly high stock prices built only upon non-existent credit struck the nation.
By the end of 1929, stockholders had lost over $40 million in paper values (more than the cost of World War I)!
By the end of 1930, 4 million Americans were jobless, and two years later, that number shot up to 12 million.
Over 5,000 banks collapsed in the first three years of the Great Depression.
Lines formed at soup kitchens and at homeless shelters.

9. Black Tuesday

10. The Dust Bowl The drought began in 1930 and continued for a decade
Due to bad-farming practices, much of the land was devastated
Winds blew across the plains and picked up the fine dust which formed into massive clouds and darkened the sky
100 million acres of top soil blew away

11. Turning Against Hoover
By 1930, the depression was a national crisis, workers were unemployed thus, people turned bitter against Hoover.
Villages of shanties and ragged shacks were called Hoovervilles and were inhabited by the people who had lost their jobs. They popped up everywhere.

12. Hoover: Change Over Time
Hoover unfairly received the brunt of the blame but he didn’t pass measures that could have lessened the depression.
He didn’t believe in government tampering with the economic machine, and felt that depressions were simply the business cycle.
However, by the end of his term, he had started to take steps for the government to help the people.

13. Hoover: Change Over Time
Finally, Hoover voted to withdraw $2.25 billion to start projects to alleviate the suffering of the depression.
The Hoover Dam of the Colorado River was one such project.

14. Hoover Battles the Great Depression
Early in 1932, Congress, responding to Hoover’s appeal, creating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which became a government lending bank.
However, giant corporations were the ones that benefited most from this, and the RFC was another criticism of Hoover.

15. Notes Discussion
As Ms. Schroeder goes through and explains the notes, be silently following along and thinking of any remaining questions that you may have!