Transcript THE INVISIBLE SCAR OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION

The Invisible Scar of the
Great Depression
Becker
US History
The Great Depression:
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October 24,1929
Black Tuesday, after year of instability
Stock market “crashes”
WHY?
– Caused by overspeculation
– Also, drastically overvalued stocks
• Banks closed, people lost everything
• Foreclosures and unemployment set in
Black Tuesday
• In one day, $14 billion loss
• Two weeks later $26 billion
• By July 1932, $47 billion had vanished.
The Great Depression Worsens
• Bread lines become increasingly common
• Foreclosures and late rent causes evictions
• Eventually, 1/4 of the workforce out of work.
• In cities like Detroit, as high as 50%.
• For African Americans and Mexican
Americans, unemployment rates are higher.
UNEMPLOYMENT
BREADLINES
Shantytowns  Hoovervilles
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Homeless people begin building shacks
On public land outside towns
Called Hoovervilles (President is blamed)
Hobos wandered around looking for work
HOOVERVILLES
Farmers in Depression
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Farmers especially hard-hit
Additionally, a drought begins on the plains
Farmers have no money to plant
Empty fields begin to erode
Dust Bowl results with terrible dry duststorms
Migration to California begins- little
improvement
DUST BOWL
Although Many Suffer, Some Prosper
• Joseph Kennedy, JFK’s father
– Turns $4 million into $100 million (1929-1935)
• J. Paul Getty, oil tycoon
– Buys good oil companies
– Amasses oil empire from 1930-1935
Depression Does Not Go Away
– Officials continued to predict a good future
– January 1930, Department of Labor
predicts "a splendid employment year"
– March 1930, Hoover announces “the worst
will be over in 60 days”
– 60 days later, he predicts that business will
be normal in the fall
– Hoover tries a do-nothing strategy
People Lost their Savings
Bonus Army
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Veterans march on Washington
Demand their bonus to be paid in 1936
Congress refuses to pay early bonus
Finally Hoover orders them evicted
Army kicks Bonus Army out
Burns their shanties to the ground
BONUS ARMY
People Lost their Jobs
Hoovervilles Began to Dot the Urban Scene
Central Park, New York
Seattle
Poverty an important issue
• Local private charity systems overwhelmed
• Harlan County KY, people live on dandelions
and blackberries
• Dysentery bloats stomachs of starving babies
• Children are so famished that they begin
chewing up their own hands
• People attempted to plant vegetables but ate
plants before they could produce fruit
Poverty an important issue
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First savings accounts
Then insurance
Then borrow from family and friends
Then stop paying rent
Then get evicted
Then move in with relatives
Then run up more bills for food
A New York City
Breadline
Government Does Not Respond
• Still little official recognition of serious need
• "Don't emphasize hard times, and everything
will be all right."
• No department of welfare exists
• Finally, NY forms one in 1929
• Hoover kept insisting that no one starved
• Newsreel shows him feeding his dog a steak
• 1933, 29 people starved to death in NYC
• An additional 110 children die of malnutrition
Starvation
becomes
an Issue
Starving Times: Christmas
Dinner
Workers treated shabbily:
• Skilled workers laid off from factories
• Glut of workers employers took
advantage
• In Detroit- men stood outside auto
plants all night to be first in hiring line
• Seeking jobs, many told
• "Get lost. You are too black, or too
Jewish or too old or the wrong sex to
work here."
Workers treated shabbily:
• Immigrants told-"Move on. Why don't
you go back where you came form."
• Mexicans are fired,sent back to Mexico
• Women are told
• "Stay home. Don't take a job from a
man.”
• Baby Bust Generation: “You better not
have a baby either. You can’t afford to
feed the ones you have.”
The Government Advises
• Men told- "Keep a way from women.
Don't get hooked.”
• “Keep away from your wife. You don't
need children."
• Hoover chose the word depression
because it sounded less frightening
than panic or crisis.
Franklin D. Roosevelt & the New Deal:
• Great Depression produces desperation
• Hoover’s do-nothing attitude sweeps
Franklin D. Roosevelt into the White
House in 1932
• FDR’s first task is to restore faith in the
financial system
• Solution is the New Deal
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The Three Rs
• Relief
• Recovery
• Reform
Hundred Days
• FDR makes many promises for 1st 100 Days
in office
• Banking Holiday
• Glass-Seagall Banking act- 1933
– More powerful Federal Reserve
– Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
• Securities Act
– regulated the stock exchanges “truth telling”
– SEC created to oversee
Franklin D. Roosevelt & the New Deal:
• Create employment to revive the economy
• Federal Emergency Relief Administration
– FERA – funds for jobs for the unemployed
• Civilian Conservation Corps
– CCC – temp work for young men in conservation
• Civil Works Administration
– CWA – 4M employed in road building and repair
– Public Works Administration replaces the CWA
• Works Progress Administration
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Largest New Deal agency: 8M jobs
Art, theatre, construction, aid distribution
Women are excluded from most programs
Assumption that men are the breadwinners
Civil Conservation Corps:
Sequoia National Park
Works Progress
Administration
Assistance for agriculture:
• Agricultural Adjustment Act
– AAA - raised farm prices
– paid farmers not to grow crops
– funds mainly large-scale farmers
• Farm Security Administration
– Moves tenant farmers/sharecroppers
– Relocates onto fertile land in group farms
– Critics say socialization of agriculture
Assistance for Industry
• National Industrial Recovery Act
– NIRA - creates National Recovery
Administration
– system of business self-regulation
– regulate market, raise prices, raise wages
– guaranteed right of collective bargaining
Housing Issues
• Federal Housing Administration created (FHA)
– Improve housing conditions in urban areas
– Makes home loans available to the poor
• HOLC: Home Owners Loan Corporation
– USHA creates low-cost housing projects
• HUD Housing and Urban Development runs projects
Additional Programs
• Rural Electrification Act of 1936
– Creation of jobs bringing electricity to
backward areas
– Primarily involves Tennessee Valley
Authority
• Social Security Administration (SSA)
– 1st national program to provide relief for the
elderly
• National Youth Administration
– Education/jobs for youth
Franklin D. Roosevelt & the New Deal:
• Still despite the New Deal things got worse
• Roosevelt Recession occurs
• 1934 is particularly bad causing major strikes
– Akron OH
– San Francisco, CA
– Minneapolis, MN
• 1936-37 General Motors workers go on strike
– Flint, MI and all around the country
– Workers sat-down in GM plants
• 1937, steel industry begins rioting
– Memorial Day Massacre in Chicago
– Several strikers are shot by police
A Pennsylvania Steel Strike, 1933
The Minneapolis General Strike, 1934
The San Francisco Strike, 1934
The Flint Sit-down Strike, 1936-37
The Flint Sit-down Strike, 1936-37
The Sit-down Strike Mania, 1937
Memorial Day Massacre in Chicago, 1937
Franklin D. Roosevelt & the New Deal:
• The result of these and other strikes:
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Congress of Industrial Organizations formed
New and aggressive form of unionism
Organized on an industrial basis
Other unions organize along craft lines
Willing to admit women, African-Americans,
and other disadvantaged groups
Steelworkers Organizing Poster
Roosevelt would join a union.
Franklin D. Roosevelt & the New Deal:
• Still– no real economic recovery.
• No real improvement until war broke out
in Europe in 1939
• Economy finally recovered with US
involvement World War II in 1941