The Great Depression Can Be Explained by ____

The Great Low

The Bully Low was a decade-long menses of poverty and unemployment that followed the 1929 stock market crash.

Learning Objectives

Place the central causes of the Great Low

Key Takeaways

Central Points

• The Dandy Depression, a decade-long menstruum of unemployment and poverty beginning in 1929, resulted from several economic factors in the United States including an overall refuse in need, imbalances and weaknesses in the economy, faltering demand for housing, and reduced product in the automobile industry.
• Loans to foreign nations after World State of war I became problematic in the 1920s as European countries lacked the means to repay the loans, destabilizing American debt markets. Farm prices began to fall in the post-state of war flow and farmers, already deeply in debt, could not pay dorsum their creditors.
• After the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, banks began to neglect in 1930, which caused a massive, nation-wide demand on banks as depositors hurried to convert their savings into currency. "Buying on margin," whereby investors buy shares on  credit  and utilize loans to pay, further destabilized the market.
• The collapse of the banks and stock markets led to widespread factory closures and foreclosures, leading to millions of unemployed and dispossessed Americans during the 1930s.

Cardinal Terms

• Dust Bowls: Drought-stricken areas across the Nifty Plains in the 1930s that became a symbol of the Peachy Depression.
• Wall Street Crash of Oct 1929: The event that marked the commencement of the Bully Depression, when the New York Stock Substitution dropped by 40 percent on October 29, 1929.
• Keen Low: A major economic plummet that lasted from 1929 to 1940 in the United States.

The Peachy Depression was the result of an untimely collision of negative economical factors that began with the Wall Street crash of Oct 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement. The Depression showed how intricately interconnected the national economic system was and marked a low bespeak for America in almost every way, with widespread suffering by citizens throughout the country and at almost levels of society.

Origins

Several events inevitably led to the Great Depression, although its exact causes are still debated. Ane of the most significant events was the overall refuse in consumer demand. Effectually 1928, need for new housing had faltered, afterward leading to declining sales of edifice materials and unemployment among construction workers. The motorcar industry and other manufacturers had to reduce product rates, while the prices of agronomical goods likewise dropped.

A speculative boom had taken hold in the late 1920s, which led hundreds of thousands of Americans to invest heavily in the stock market. Many investors bought shares "on margin," pregnant that they purchased them on credit while at the same time taking out loans to pay for those shares. Investors hoped that when the shares sold, they would make enough money to pay back the loans and involvement and have some turn a profit for themselves. By August 1929, brokers were routinely lending modest investors more than 2-thirds of the confront value of the stocks they were buying. The loans exceeded $8.five billion, more than the unabridged amount of currency circulating in the United states at the time.

Stock Market Crash

The rising share prices encouraged more people to invest as they hoped the share prices would ascent farther. Speculation thus fueled farther rises and created an economic bubble. Because of margin buying, investors stood to lose large sums of money if the marketplace turned down, or failed to advance quickly enough. With the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a major U.S. stock marketplace index, only past its September iii elevation of 381.17, the market finally turned down and panic selling started at the New York Stock Exchange, the primary center of American fiscal activity located on Wall Street in New York City. On October 24, 1929, besides known as "Black Thursday," the value of mutual stock and shares in the U.Southward. market dropped by xl percent and a massive, debilitating economic downward screw was set in motion.

Stock market crash, 1929: A crowd gathers on Wall Street post-obit the stock market crash on October 29, 1929.

Depression

The Wall Street crash had a major bear upon on the United states of america and world economic system, and the psychological effects reverberated beyond the nation every bit business became aware of the difficulties in securing capital markets investments for new projects and expansions. The decline in stock prices caused bankruptcies and astringent macroeconomic difficulties, including contraction of credit, business closures, firing of workers, bank failures, a decrease in the money supply, and other economy-depressing events.

The failure set off a worldwide run on U.Southward. golden deposits and forced the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. American banks began to fail in October 1930, one year after the crash, when farmers defaulted on loans. There was no federal deposit insurance during that time, and bank failures were common. Depositors, worried that they might lose all of their savings, withdrew their deposited amounts (the accounts through which money flows back and forth amidst fiscal institutions) and inverse them into hard currency (the paper and coins we agree). As withdrawals increased, the coin multiplier decreased, pregnant that money circulation throughout the economy slowed. This led to a decrease in the money supply, an increase in interest rates, and a significant decrease in aggregate investment. Some 4,000 banks and other lenders ultimately failed.

Past 1932, unemployment had surged to 24 pct, while stock prices plummeted by more than 80 percent. More than than 85,000 businesses declared bankruptcy. Industries that suffered the well-nigh included agriculture, construction, shipping, mining, and logging, too as durable goods such as automobiles and appliances, whose buy could exist postponed.

The economy reached bottom in the winter of 1932–1933. In 1933, unemployment rose to 25 percent, with more than than 11 million people seeking work. As the Depression deepened, vast numbers of families were unable to pay rent and were evicted from their homes to stay in "Hoovervilles," the slang term for shantytowns that were contemptuously named after President Herbert Hoover, whose policies were considered to arraign for the Depression.

Hooverville: A Depression-era shantytown, unremarkably chosen a "Hooverville," near Portland, Oregon.

The agricultural losses were especially acute in the Great Depression. Betwixt 1930 and 1936, severe drought weather existed in America's Swell Plains regions, with soil turning to dust and so blowing across dry, unused fields in what became known as "Grit Bowls." The high-speed wind storms that helped destroy the farmlands reportedly reached up to 60 miles per hour on April 14, 1935, also known as "Blackness Lord's day."

A great migration occurred in which approximately 200,000 farmers traveled westward, hoping to notice better state and opportunities in California. A large number of these workers did not have coin for train or bus tickets and took to illegally hopping onto freight trains, earning them the slang proper name, "Hobos." The migration likewise included many families, oftentimes more than one generation, who traveled together in search of piece of work, food, and a place to alive.

Broke, baby sick, and car trouble!: Dorothea Lange'due south 1937 photo shows a dust-basin family from Missouri stuck on the side of the road near Tracy, California.

Additional Economic Factors

Some believe a change in regime policy, specifically a change in involvement rates by the federal government, could have slowed the downwards steps into the Bully Depression. Nevertheless international influences likewise contributed to the Great Depression. Later on Earth War I, nations adopted the practice known as " Protectionism," under which strange goods were subject to tariffs, or import duties, so that strange products would cost more than and local products would cost less. The United States enacted extremely high tariffs, causing other nations to retaliate by establishing their ain tariffs against American appurtenances. Thus, American businesses lost several foreign markets in which they normally sold their goods.

International credit structure was another cause of the Low. At the cease of World War I, European nations owed enormous sums of coin to American banks, just these debts were rarely repaid, and big banks suffered due to these debts. On a less widespread but still significant front, small American banks were crippled because U.S. farmers could non pay their debts as the overall economy worsened.

Economists still dispute how much weight to give the stock market crash of Oct 1929 as a cause of the Great Depression. It clearly changed sentiment nearly and expectations of the future, shifting the outlook from very positive to negative. Many academics see the Wall Street crash of 1929 as function of a historical process called "nail and bosom." According to economists such as Joseph Schumpeter and Nikolai Kondratieff, the crash was but a historical effect in the standing procedure of economic cycles. The touch on of the crash was merely to increase the speed at which the cycle proceeded to its adjacent level. Milton Friedman's volume, A Budgetary History of the Us, cowritten with Anna Schwartz, makes the argument that what fabricated the "swell contraction" so severe was non the downturn in the business bicycle, trade protectionism, or the 1929 stock market crash, just the collapse of the banking system during three waves of panic over the 1930–1933 period.

Results

In 1932, the Pecora Commission was established by the U.Southward. Senate to study the causes of the Wall Street crash. The following year, the U.S. Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Human activity, officially named the "Banking Act of 1933," mandating a separation between commercial banks, which take deposits and extend loans, and investment banks, which underwrite, result, and distribute stocks, bonds, and other securities.

President Hoover had lost the presidential election of 1932 to Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a landslide, and Roosevelt's economic recovery programme, called the New Deal, instituted unprecedented programs for relief and reform. In 1933, Roosevelt created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which provided a legal protection against bank losses.

Stock markets around the globe instituted measures to suspend trading in the event of rapid declines, claiming that the measures would forestall such panic sales. The "Uptick Rule," which, "immune short selling only when the last tick in a stock's toll was positive," was implemented after the crash to prevent short sellers from driving the price of a stock downwards in a bear run, a period of economic cynicism that fuels stock sales. Nevertheless the one-day crash of October 19, 1987, known as "Black Monday," when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.6 percent, was worse in percentage terms than any single day of the 1929 crash.

The net issue of the 1929 stock market place crash was a sudden and general loss of confidence in the country'south economic future. The explanations included high consumer debt, ill-regulated markets that permitted over-optimistic loans past banks and investors, and the lack of high-growth new industries, all interacting to create a downwardly economic spiral of reduced spending, falling confidence, and lowered production. The result was a Great Depression that showed the vast impact a nation's economic health has on its overall wellbeing and the immense human cost such an event tin can crusade.

The Homo Toll

The Great Depression acquired widespread homelessness and illness, fueled discrimination, and increased migrant labor.

Learning Objectives

Describe some of the suffering the Great Depression brought upon Americans

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The Great Low of the 1930s increased the number of homeless people and full-bodied them in " Hooverville " settlements, where terrible living conditions caused widespread disease. The "Dust Bowl," a big expanse across the S and the Keen Plains, experienced windstorms and droughts that led to widespread destruction of farmlands and forced Midwestern farm families into cities, compounding urban poverty.
• Migrant  laborers, who traveled from farm to farm selling labor past harvesting crops, were excluded from  federal  and state legislation protecting wages and off-white working practices and ofttimes received unfair pay.
• The Low besides resulted in an increase in racism and discrimination, equally African Americans, Hispanics, and women frequently were denied available jobs in favor of awarding them to white men. The Black Shirts, a racist southern group, recruited more than forty,000 people to proscribe African Americans from working equally paid labor before white people.

Central Terms

• migrant worker: An agricultural laborer who travels from place to place harvesting seasonal crops.
• Grit Bowl: American prairie lands in the 1930s that suffered major ecological and agronomical damage equally a effect of severe dust storms.
• Hoovervilles: The slang proper noun for shantytowns built by homeless people during the Great Low. They were contemptuously named for President Herbert Hoover, whose policies were blamed for the economic strife.

The Great Low of the 1930s brought thousands of people, and even entire regions of the country, to their knees. The sudden, catastrophic economical downturn that followed the Wall Street crash of 1929 caused widespread homelessness, poor health and early on deaths, and the creation of shantytowns in urban areas. A massive, forced migration took laborers away from their homes to transient jobs in which they experienced bigotry and unfair working atmospheric condition and pay. The economic desperation as well fueled discrimination against people of color and women.

Hoovervilles

The increase in homelessness, due to sudden unemployment and an inability to pay rent, concentrated thousands of Americans in squalid, urban settlements throughout the nation. These became known as "Hoovervilles," a term coined by Democratic National Commission publicity primary Charles Michelson to slander the name of Republican President Herbert Hoover, whose policies many people blamed for the stock market crash and ensuing Depression.

Hoovervilles arose in many public areas, including in well-known locations such as Central Park in New York City, where scores of homeless families camped out at the park'southward Dandy Lawn, as well as in New York's Riverside Park. Some of the men forced to live in these atmospheric condition possessed construction skills and were able to build houses out of rock. Most people, notwithstanding, resorted to building shelters out of cardboard, wood from crates and fences, scraps of metal, or whatever other materials were bachelor to them. These makeshift homes offered scant protection from wind, rain, and the common cold of winter. Ordinarily these settlements had no running water or bathrooms, and living conditions were extremely unsanitary, enabling disease to spread easily. Local government did not officially recognize these Hoovervilles and occasionally removed occupants for trespassing on private lands, although they were oft tolerated or ignored out of necessity.

Hooverville in Manhattan, 1935: This photo taken in an alley in the Manhattan borough of New York Metropolis in 1935, shows makeshift housing of the type constitute in Low-era shantytowns named "Hoovervilles" to place blame on President Herbert Hoover.

Democrats coined other terms—such as "Hoover blanket," an old paper used every bit blanketing and "Hoover flag," an empty pocket turned within out—that pressed the idea of the president's blame for the public misery. "Hoover leather" was cardboard used to line a shoe when the sole wore through, while a "Hoover carriage" was an machine with horses hitched to information technology considering the owner could not beget fuel.

At that place were various tactics employed to effort to end the suffering of those forced to reside in squalid conditions. Soup kitchens, invented by Benjamin Thompson and run past volunteers, gave gratis food to homeless Americans, who oft received their but daily meal from these establishments.

Subsequently Franklin Delano Roosevelt soundly defeated Hoover in the November 1932 presidential election, FDR'due south "New Bargain" economic recovery program enacted special relief programs for the homeless under the Federal Transient Service (FTS), which operated from 1933 to 1935. In 1934, the Frazier-Lemke Farm Defalcation Act and Taylor Grazing Deed as well became pivotal tools in the endeavour to prevent farms from failing and to add together livestock feeding areas, both of which helped reduce homelessness. Later on 1940, the economy recovered, unemployment cruel, and shanty eradication programs destroyed all of the remaining Hoovervilles.

The "Dust Bowl"

In 1930, a confluence of bad weather and poor agricultural practices compounded the Low's effects on farmers in areas in the South and Midwest Great Plains that came to be known as the "Dust Bowl." The affected area included 1 million acres centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and adjacent parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.

Drought and massive windstorms that threw up giant clouds of dust connected throughout the 1930s, leading to the period being chosen the "Dirty Thirties." The dust storms caused major ecological and agricultural impairment to American prairie lands, particularly in 1934 and 1936. In 1934, an estimated 75 percent of the United States felt some effect from the storms, including New England, where scarlet snow fell.

The phenomenon was caused past severe drought coupled with decades of all-encompassing farming without crop rotation, dormant fields, embrace crops, and other techniques to forbid current of air erosion. Farmers grew more and more crops, despite the prices of each of the crops beginning to decline. Deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Dandy Plains displaced the natural deep-rooted grasses that normally kept the soil in place and trapped moisture even during periods of drought and high winds.

As the 1930s progressed, the soil continued to dry, turn to grit, and blow e and southward in big, dark clouds. At times, these clouds blackened the heaven, reaching all the manner to Eastward Declension cities such as New York and Washington, D.C. Much of the soil—carried by prevailing winds, which were themselves strengthened by the dry out and bare soil atmospheric condition—concluded up deposited in the Atlantic Ocean, These immense dust storms, given names such as " black blizzards " and "black rollers," often reduced visibility to a few feet. During black blizzards, normal activities such as breathing, eating, and walking outside became very hard tasks. More than 350 houses had to be torn down afterwards ane storm alone, and more than 500,000 Americans were left homeless.

Cached machinery in the "Dust Basin," 1936: Subcontract equipment in South Dakota is left half exposed by one of the many windstorms that swept across the Great Plains during the "Dust Bowl" menstruum of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

The sustained drought and storms damaged the country so desperately that overall farm acquirement fell past 50 percent in the "Dust Basin" region. Some residents of the Great Plains, especially in Kansas and Oklahoma, became ill and died of dust pneumonia or malnutrition. While at that place is no official expiry toll due to insufficient tape keeping, it is believed that up to 7,000 deaths occurred as a outcome of conditions in the "Dust Bowl." Already suffering from depressed prices and declining incomes, many farmers were forced to abandon their operations and movement to the cities or to agricultural areas in other states in social club to survive.

Migrant Labor

The "Grit Bowl" exodus was the largest migration in American history within a short menstruation of time. By 1940, 2.v million people had moved out of the plains states, including 200,000 who moved to California. With their land arid and homes seized in foreclosure, many families were forced to leave farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and New United mexican states. Americans primarily migrated west looking for piece of work, although most found that the economical conditions were not much better than the ones they had left, given the pervasiveness of the Groovy Low throughout the land.

"Migrant labor" is a term applied to those who travel from place to place harvesting crops that must exist picked as soon as they ripen, a exercise that became a harsh necessity for indigent farm workers. There were two kinds of migrant workers: seasonal urban dwellers and permanent migrants who followed crops from one place to another in order to brand a living. For both categories, the hard work produced little advantage. Because of their exclusion from federal and state legislation that protected workers against exploitation and unfair labor practices, migrant workers earned lower wages than other farm laborers. The jobs were chancy, while housing and health conditions were extremely poor.

Migrant Mother: In this famous Dorothea Lange photograph, a destitute mother and two of her seven children take a break from picking peas in California. The 1936 paradigm became synonymous with the plight of migrant farm workers during the Depression.

More of the migrants were from Oklahoma than whatever other country, earning them the nickname "Okies." The names "Arkies" and "Texies" were also used, but were less common. Ben Reddick, a freelance journalist and later publisher of the Paso Robles Daily Pressin California, is credited with first using the term "Oakie" in the mid-1930s to identify migrant farm workers. Reddick noticed the "OK" abridgement on many of the migrants' license plates and referred to them in his commodity as "Oakies." Californians began calling all migrants past the name, fifty-fifty though many newcomers were not Oklahomans. West Coast residents and some politically motivated writers used "Okie" to disparage these poor, white workers and their families, but besides included those of Native-American ancestry such as Cherokees, who were the largest tribal group.

Film star Volition Rogers, who had Oklahoma roots, jokingly remarked that Okies moving to California increased the average intelligence of both states. Author John Steinbeck later wrote his novels Of Mice and Men and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath near migrant laborers and their struggles. The music and writings of Woody Guthrie were also inspired by migrant workers and the "Dust Basin."

Discrimination

The Depression was an extremely difficult time for white Americans in the lower classes. Yet it was even worse for other races, especially for African Americans, every bit the difficult economic conditions once again forced virulent racism and discrimination into the open in American society. In the South in 1930, an organization chosen the "Blackness Shirts" recruited approximately xl,000 people to its racist agenda, which primarily stated that no African American would be given a chore before a white person. Unemployment amid black workers grew to almost 50 per centum by 1932.

In the Southwest, the claim that Hispanic workers were "stealing jobs" from whites became prevalent. The U.South. Department of Labor deported 82,000 Mexicans between 1929 and 1935, while nearly half a million people returned to Mexico either voluntarily or after existence tricked or threatened into believing they had no other choice. Many of these people had immigrated legally, but lacked the proper documentation to evidence their status. Authorities officials likewise ignored the legislation automatically designating children born
in the country every bit legal U.Due south. citizens.

Discrimination against women was also widespread, with many assertive sexist claims that women were stealing bachelor jobs from men. In a survey conducted in 1930 and 1931, 77 percent of schools refused to hire married women as teachers, while 63 percent of schools fired females already working as teachers but who then chose to ally.

Hoover'south Efforts at Recovery

President Hoover attempted to stalk the Great Low but was thwarted by political influences, economical realities, and his own ideals.

Learning Objectives

Clarify the fiscal and monetary tools that Hoover used to combat the Dandy Depression

Primal Takeaways

Primal Points

• President Hoover believed that cocky-reliance and public-individual cooperation, rather than excessive federal  government  intervention, were the paths to recovery from the Great Depression. Despite calls for greater government assistance, Hoover refused to fund welfare programs that he believed would reduce incentives to work.
• Intending to reduce municipal aid-services burdens and combat white American unemployment, Hoover instituted the Mexican repatriation  program in 1929. This resulted in the forced  migration  of more than than 500,000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans to Mexico.
• The Smoot-Hawley  Tariff  raised the entry taxation on thousands of imported items as part of a failed effort to encourage the buy of American-made goods, raise federal acquirement, and protect farmers.
• The Hoover Moratorium, issued in 1931, called for a one-year halt in both  reparation  payments by Deutschland to France and the repayment of Centrolineal war debts to the United States. This was met with much opposition in France and Britain and did little to ease economic declines.

Key Terms

• Mexican Repatriation programme: A mass, forced migration that took place from 1929 through 1936, when between 500,000 and 2 1000000 Mexicans and people of Mexican descent were forced or pressured to leave the Us. The issue, carried out by American government, took identify without due process.
• Revenue Human activity of 1932: A law that raised U.S. tax rates across the board, with the rate on top incomes ascent from 25 percent to 63 per centum. Information technology doubled the estate revenue enhancement and raised corporate taxes by nearly 15 percentage.
• Hoover Moratorium: A public argument issued by U.Southward. President Herbert Hoover on June xx, 1931, proposing a one-year moratorium on payments of Earth State of war I and other war debt and postponing the initial payments and the involvement; Hoover hoped it would ease the coming international economic crisis.
• Smoot-Hawley Tariff: An human action signed into law on June 17, 1930, that raised U.S. tariffs on more than than 20,000 imported goods to record levels.

The onset of the Great Depression tested the ethics and government policies of President Herbert Hoover, who firmly believed cooperation betwixt public and private spheres would lead to long-term growth in the economic system. Hoover feared too much intervention or coercion by the government would destroy individuality past fostering a reliance on assistance and reducing the incentive to work. Still this proved increasingly problematic as the U.S. economy continued to turn down and calls for greater regime aid increased.

Rugged Individualism

"Rugged individualism" was a term Hoover used often during his presidency to explicate the idea that individuals should be able to assistance themselves without authorities involvement in personal economic affairs or national economic science in general. A libertarian, Hoover'southward own rugged individualism may have resulted from his frustration with the unprecedented government interest in the economy during World War I. He emphasized that rugged individualism was non laissez-faire economics, which he denounced.

Herbert Hoover: Hoover addresses a large crowd on the campaign trail in 1932.

Hoover entered office in March 1929 with a plan to reform the nation's regulatory organization, holding that a federal bureaucracy should have limited regulation over a land's economic system. A self-described Progressive and reformer, Hoover saw the presidency every bit a vehicle for improving the atmospheric condition of all Americans by encouraging public-individual cooperation. He termed this relationship equally " volunteerism " and considered it preferable to government coercion or intervention, both of which he believed were in opposition to the American ideals of individualism and self-reliance.

Hoover said that, "given the chance to go forrad with the policies of the terminal viii years, we shall soon, with the assist of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation." He added that, "we in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land." These statements came mere months before the Wall Street crash of Oct 29, 1929, which opened a chapter of American history that would redefine an impoverished guild.

A potent proponent of balanced budgets and unwilling to run a deficit to fund welfare programs, Hoover carried his idea of rugged individualism into the Neat Depression that followed the crash, insisting that the federal government should non interfere with the American people during the economic crunch. Providing large-scale humanitarian efforts, Hoover feared, would hurt, "the initiative and enterprise of the American people."

Yet in spite of his personal, libertarian behavior, Hoover however pursued policies aimed at pulling the country out of the Depression. Some of his major initiatives, however, were misguided and negatively impacted both the economy and American society.

Mexican Repatriation

In 1929, Hoover authorized a program of Mexican repatriation with the stated intention of combating rampant American unemployment, reducing the burden on municipal aid services, and removing people who were considered usurpers of American jobs. This has been perceived as an endeavour by the assistants to use immigrants every bit a scapegoat to divert criticism and regain the support of the U.S. organized labor movement.

The repatriation program, which continued through 1936, was a forced migration of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans over the southern border, with estimates of the deported ranging from 500,000 to ii 1000000. In 2005, the government of California proclaimed an official apology to those who were removed from the state to Mexico, including an estimated i.2 million legal U.Due south. citizens.

To justify the program, canton officials in Los Angeles, California, for example, petitioned the federal government to reduce the number of families on federal welfare and brand jobs bachelor to "Existent Americans" by deporting immigrants. The American Federation of Labor and the National Guild of America for Americans both stated that deportation of Mexicans would free jobs for U.S. citizens. This sentiment took precedence as the Not bad Depression connected, despite national statistics showing that less than 10 percentage of people on welfare were Mexican or of Mexican descent. Nonetheless, states passed laws requiring all public employees to be American citizens, while the federal government imposed restrictions on immigrant labor. Many employers fired Mexican workers and refused to hire others, causing an increase in unemployment in the Mexican community.

Hoover endorsed a program to deport "foreigners" under the tertiary U.Southward. secretary of labor, William Due north. Doak, whose measures to expel Mexican immigrants included arresting participants in labor protests and farm strikes, charging them with illegal activities or being illegal immigrants, and deporting them. This focus on labor garnered public support for further actions by clearing agents including mass arrests and arbitrary deportations.

William Doak: William N. Doak served every bit the U.Due south. secretary of labor under President Herbert Hoover.

Smoot-Hawley Tariff

Despite the objections of many economists, Hoover signed the Tariff Deed of 1930, commonly called the "Smoot-Hawley Tariff," which raised the entry tax on more than twenty,000 items imported from foreign countries to historically loftier levels.

Signed into law on June 17, 1930, and sponsored past Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representative Willis C. Hawley of Oregon, the Republican chairman of the Firm Ways and Means Commission, the human activity encouraged the purchase of American-fabricated products by increasing the toll of imported goods. It also was expected to garner revenue for the federal authorities and protect U.S. farmers from foreign competition.

Hawley and Smoot: U.S. Representative Willis C. Hawley, left, and Senator Reed Smoot in Apr 1929, shortly before the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act passed the Business firm of Representatives.

By the time the tariff passed into law, all the same, the economic depression had spread through much of the world, spurring other nations to retaliate past increasing their ain tariffs on American-made goods and subsequently lowering the overall amount of international trade. This worsened the Great Depression by reducing American imports and exports by more than half.

A petition signed in May 1930 by 1,028 U.S. economists had asked Hoover to veto, rather than laissez passer, the tariff act. Automobile magnate Henry Ford visited the White House in an try to convince Hoover to veto the nib, while J.P. Morgan CEO Thomas Due west. Lamont was quoted as proverb he, "almost went down on my knees to beg Herbert Hoover to veto the asinine Hawley-Smoot tariff." Hoover himself opposed the nib, calling information technology, "barbarous, extortionate, and obnoxious" due to its undermining of his pledge to international economic cooperation. He yielded to pressure from within his ain party and the business community, however, and signed the bill, which was after used against him by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election that tossed Hoover from office.

Moratorium and NCC

On June 20, 1931, the president issued the so-called Hoover Moratorium, his proposal for a one-year halt in reparation payments by Federal republic of germany to France likewise equally payments of Allied war debts to the United states of america. This was met with trigger-happy opposition among a large segment of Americans and particularly by French republic, which had suffered significant losses to Germany during World State of war I. The moratorium, nonetheless, gained the back up of 15 nations past early July and earned congressional approval in December. Yet it did piffling to ease the standing economical decline. As the moratorium neared its expiration, representatives from Britain, France, and Germany met from June 16 to July ix, 1932, at the Lausanne Conference in Switzerland to find a permanent solution. Nevertheless a working compromise was never established and by the start of World War II, reparations payments had stopped completely.

Hoover also urged the major U.S. banks to course a consortium known as the "National Credit Corporation (NCC)" in 1931. The NCC exemplified Hoover'south conventionalities in volunteerism every bit a mechanism for aiding the economy. He encouraged NCC member banks to provide loans to smaller banks in order to prevent their collapse. The banks inside the NCC were often reluctant to provide loans and normally required small banks to provide their largest assets equally collateral. It rapidly became apparent the NCC was incapable of fixing the problems information technology was designed to solve.

Hoover and Congress also approved the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to spur new dwelling structure and reduce foreclosures. The programme initially seemed to work as the rate of foreclosures dropped, but for many, it was seen equally likewise trivial, too belatedly, with tens of thousands of Americans homeless.

Final Attempts

Past 1932, unemployment had reached 24.9 percent; a drought persisted in the primal United States, particularly in Oklahoma and Texas; businesses and families had defaulted on loans in record numbers, and more than 5,000 banks had failed.

To pay for government relief programs and to make up for lost acquirement, Hoover agreed to roll back several revenue enhancement cuts his assistants enacted on higher-subclass incomes. Prior to the Great Depression, Hoover's first Treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, had proposed and enacted numerous tax cuts nether presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, which cutting the top income tax rate from 73 percent to 24 percent. When combined with the sharp refuse in incomes during the early Depression, the consequence was a serious deficit in the federal budget.

Desperate to increase federal revenue, Congress approved 1 of the largest tax increases in American history, the Revenue Act of 1932. Income tax on the highest incomes rose from 25 percent to 63 percent, the estate revenue enhancement was doubled, and corporations were taxed at an increased rate of 13.75 per centum. A "check taxation" placed a ii-cent levy on all bank checks, equal to more than xxx cents in today'southward economic system. Hoover besides encouraged Congress to investigate the New York Stock Exchange, resulting in diverse reforms.

The final Hoover administration attempt to rescue the economy occurred in 1932 with the passage of the Emergency Relief and Structure Human action, which authorized funds for public works programs and the cosmos of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), an contained bureau whose purpose was to provide government-secured loans to financial institutions, railroads, and farmers.

The agency gave $2 billion in aid to state and local governments and made loans to banks, railroads, mortgage associations, and other businesses. Though the RFC had minimal bear upon at the time, it was adopted by Franklin D. Roosevelt and profoundly expanded as part of his New Deal economic recovery plan. In fact, economist Rexford Tugwell, a member of FDR's policy team known equally the "Brain Trust," later remarked that although no one would say and so at the time, "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."

Hoover congressional initiatives: President Herbert Hoover, depicted in a March 1929 political cartoon, took up a number of federal initiatives intended to reverse the economic damage caused by the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the Dandy Depression that followed.

Herbert Hoover has been criticized for taking a laissez-faire arroyo to the Depression, relying on "volunteerism" through churches and social groups to provide public assistance. Nevertheless in his memoirs, he claimed to have rejected Treasury Secretary Mellon's suggested "exit-it-solitary" approach and noted that he called many business organization leaders to Washington, urging them to refrain from terminating workers or cutting wages.

The Bonus Army

Bang-up Depression unemployment led veterans known every bit the "Bonus Army" to protest for early payments of military service certificates.

Learning Objectives

Discuss the demands of the Bonus Ground forces marchers and the issue of their campaign

Key Takeaways

Cardinal Points

• Nether the World War Adapted Compensation Act of 1924, veterans received bonuses in the course of certificates they could not redeem until 1945.
• The Bonus Ground forces, led past former Sergeant Walter Waters, was an  assembly  of over 40,000 World War I veterans, families, and affiliated groups who marched on Washington, D.C. in 1932 to demand an immediate cash payment of service certificates.
• President Hoover and  Republicans opposed cashing certificates because the government would exist forced to levy higher taxes to cover the cost. The U.S. Senate failed to pass a Bonus Nib allowing veterans to receive early payments. Hoover eventually ordered the eviction of the Bonus Ground forces from Washington and violence ensued, greatly damaging his reelection entrada.
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt negotiated a settlement with the Bonus Army by offer positions in the newly created Noncombatant Conservation Corps. Congress passed the Adjusted Bounty Payment Human action in 1936, authorizing the payment of $2 million in World State of war I bonuses over FDR'southward  veto.

Cardinal Terms

• CCC: A U.Southward. public work-relief programme from 1933 to 1942 for unemployed, single men ages 17 to 23. A part of the New Bargain of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, information technology provided unskilled, manual labor jobs related to the conservation and evolution of natural resource in rural lands owned by federal, state, and local governments.
• Walter Waters: (1898—1959) A former U.Southward. Army sergeant who in May 1932 led the xx,000-strong army of World War I veterans called the "Bonus Army" on its march to Washington, D.C. The veterans sought firsthand payment of service certificates, substantially additional pay, promised to them by Congress in the World War Adapted Bounty Deed of 1924 and scheduled for payment in 1945.
• Earth War Adjusted Compensation Act: A U.S. federal law passed on May 19, 1924 that granted a do good to veterans of American military service in World War I; also chosen the "Bonus Human action."
• Veterans of Strange Wars: Commonly known equally the VFW, the organization formed in September 1899 advocates for the legislative rights of American war veterans and assists disabled veterans and veterans' widows and orphans, while promoting patriotism and customs service.

The "Bonus Regular army" was the popular name of protesters who gathered in Washington, D.C. in the spring and summer of 1932 to demand firsthand cash payment of their World War I service certificates. Their march on the capital was effective in bringing to calorie-free the misfortune of men who had fought for their country just to be denied regime assist. In improver, the breakup of the Bonus Army encampment by U.Due south. Regular army troops contributed to the eventual election loss of President Herbert Hoover.

Reasons for the March

Many World State of war I veterans had been out of piece of work since the Keen Depression began in 1929. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded them bonuses in the form of certificates. Each service document, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, diameter a confront value equal to the soldier'south promised payment plus compound interest. The certificates, notwithstanding, could not be redeemed until 1945, which was the root of the protest that followed.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) pressed the federal regime to permit early redemption of military service certificates due to the crushing economic effects of the Great Depression that began in 1929. In January 1932, a march of 25,000 unemployed Pennsylvanians took place in Washington D.C. The group was dubbed "Cox's Army" afterwards their leader, pro-labor activist and Roman Cosmic priest Father James Renshaw Cox of Pittsburgh. At that time, information technology was the largest demonstration to take place at the nation'southward capital letter and set up a precedent for futurity marches past the unemployed.

In the leap and summer of that year, some 43,000 marchers, including 17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups, came together to need early on payment of service certificates. Led by Walter W. Waters, a erstwhile Ground forces sergeant, organizers referred to the assembly of protesters as the "Bonus Expeditionary Forcefulness," echoing the name of World War I'south American Expeditionary Force in Europe, while the media dubbed their protestation action the "Bonus March."

Although at that place was Congressional support for the immediate redemption of the military service certificates for members of the Bonus Army, President Hoover and Republican congressmen opposed such action. They reasoned the regime would have to increment taxes to cover the costs of the payout, and thus whatsoever potential recovery from the Depression would be slowed.

On June fifteen, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Patman Bonus Pecker, which would have moved frontward the date for World War I veterans to receive cash bonuses. The U.South. Senate, however, defeated the bill and left the early payments unfunded. On June 17, the aforementioned solar day that the Senate rejected the measure, the Bonus Ground forces amassed in Washington.

Bonus Army in Activity

Well-nigh of the Bonus Army camped in a Hooverville —the slang proper noun given to shantytowns built by the poor during the Low throughout the 1930s—on the Anacostia Flats, a swampy, muddy surface area across the Anacostia River from the federal core of Washington D.C.

The campsites, congenital from materials scavenged from a nearby rubbish dump, were tightly controlled by the veterans who laid out streets within the site, congenital sanitation facilities, and held daily parades. To live in the camps, veterans were required to annals and prove they had been honorably discharged from service. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, one of the nearly pop military figures of the time, visited the Bonus Regular army's campsite to back the effort and encourage the protesters.

On July 28, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans to be removed from all government holding. The protesters returned, however, and Washington law who met with resistance shot ii veterans, who later on died of their wounds. Upon learning of the shootings, Hoover ordered the army to clear the veterans from Washington.

Bonus Army Conflict: A photograph of Bonus Ground forces marchers confronting the law who attempted to articulate out their campsites during protests in Washington, D.C., in 1932.

The Regular army Primary of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, assembled infantry and cavalry in Pennsylvania Artery at 4:45 p.grand., supported by six tanks under the control of Major George Southward. Patton. Thousands of civil service workers lined the streets to watch, and Bonus Army marchers cheered for the troops they believed were there to accolade them as veterans. Spectators yelled "shame" when the cavalry charged the marchers, followed by infantry troops with fixed bayonets and tear gas, inbound the Bonus March campsites and driving out protesters, along with their wives and children.

After burning shelters and belongings, the troops were ordered to stand up down past Hoover, just MacArthur ordered another assault, claiming the protestation was an endeavour to overthrow the federal government. A reported 55 veterans were injured and 135 arrested, one veteran'south wife miscarried her child, and an infant died of what was believed to be a reaction to tear gas.

Evicting the Bonus Regular army: A photo of shacks erected by members of the Bonus Army on the Anacostia Flats in Washington, D.C. called-for  after an eviction and confrontation with the war machine in the summer of 1932.

Fallout from the March

The Bonus Army incident did not bear upon the armed forces careers of MacArthur or Patton, who was roundly criticized for dismissing an approach by a busy veteran who had reportedly saved his life during World War I. The tearing consequence, notwithstanding, proved disastrous for the political career of Hoover, whose chances at reelection were dealt a massive blow by the negative publicity. He lost the 1932 presidential election in a landslide to Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Hoover and Roosevelt, 1933: Approachable President Herbert Hoover, left, drives with Franklin D. Roosevelt on the day of FDR's March 1933 inauguration in Washington, D.C.

A second, smaller Bonus March in 1933 at the first of the Roosevelt administration was defused with an offer of jobs for veterans in the Civilian Conservation Corps ( CCC ) at Fort Hunt, Virginia. Most of the marchers accepted jobs in the CCC, a newly created public work-relief program that lasted through 1942. Those who chose not to work for the CCC by the May 22 deadline were given transportation home from Washington. In 1936, Congress overrode President Roosevelt'southward veto and paid the veterans their bonuses years early.

Escaping Hard Times

The 1930s escapist civilisation involved cheap entertainment such every bit music, radio, and films that diverted attention from life'southward hardships.

Learning Objectives

Describe the function the arts played in helping Americans endure the Neat Depression

Cardinal Takeaways

Key Points

• Spending money on entertainment was a luxury that few could beget during the Depression. The U.S. regime offered assist programs to many artists, who in plow provided inexpensive or costless amusements to the American public.
• Music genres such every bit big ring and jazz were at the heart of the wildly popular swing music scene and were featured at concert halls that offered inexpensive amusement, especially in urban centers.
• Radio broadcasts were a source of costless entertainment for the American public and included shows, newscasts, soap operas, and religious sermons.
• Walt Disney began creating innovative animated films, such equally Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, that became integral to American entertainment civilisation. Other favorites of the 1930s included films past Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers.

Key Terms

• jazz: A musical art form rooted in both West African cultural and musical expression and in the African-American blues tradition. The audio, which included diverse influences over time, commonly was characterized by bluish notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms, and improvisation.
• escapism: An inclination to depart from routine or reality into fantasy. Escapist themes were axiomatic in many of the pop films of the 1930s, such equally Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wizard of Oz.
• The 1000 Ole Opry: A weekly land music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre. Information technology is amidst the longest-running broadcasts in history since information technology began on November 28, 1925, every bit a one-hour, radio "barn dance" on WSM.

Equally the U.s.a. faced its longest and deepest economic downturn in the Great Depression, for most people, spending money on amusement was out of the question. The civilization of escapism of the 1930s revolved around finding innovative and inexpensive forms of entertainment that diverted attending from the pressing problems and hardships of everyday life for millions of Americans.

Music

As it had for hundreds of years, music continued to enjoy wild popularity as a grade of amusement. In the 1930s, all the same, it took on added importance as music cost the audience little or null and diverted public attention from everyday economical troubles. Americans loved a diverseness of music genres in the 1930s, with big band and jazz music maintaining popularity post-obit their explosion onto the national cultural scene in the previous decade.

Post-obit World State of war I, many jazz musicians from New Orleans migrated to major northern cities such as Chicago and New York, leading to a wider dispersal of jazz equally different styles developed in different cities. Equally the 1920s progressed, jazz rose in popularity and helped to generate a cultural shift. Because of its popularity in speakeasies, illegal nightclubs where alcohol was sold during Prohibition, and its proliferation due to the emergence of more than avant-garde recording devices, jazz became very popular in a brusque amount of fourth dimension, with stars including Cab Calloway and Chick Webb.

Due to the racial prejudice prevalent at most radio stations, white American jazz artists received much more than air time than did black jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Joe "King" Oliver. Large-band jazz, like that of James Reese in Europe and Fletcher Henderson in New York, was besides popular on the radio and brought an African-American style and influence to a predominantly white cultural scene. One of the exceptions was Duke Ellington and his large band, who played several types of music from blues to gospel to jazz and more. Ane of his virtually successful songs was, "It Don't Mean a Affair (If Information technology Ain't Got That Swing)."

Duke Ellington: Knuckles Ellington was one of the most pop jazz musicians and big-band leaders who became well known in the 1920s and remained popular in the 1930s.

Radio

In the 1930s, listening to radio broadcasts became a source of well-nigh gratis amusement for millions of Americans, and radio stations had a little flake of everything for listeners of all ages. Since the 1920s, radio had provided Americans with a trendy new avenue for exploring unfamiliar cultural experiences from the comfort of their living rooms. The most pop type of radio show was a "potter palm," an amateur concert and big-band jazz performance broadcast from New York and Chicago.

In the 1930s, American adults often listened to newscasts, radio theater, soap operas, religious sermons, and entertainment programs. President Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcast his "fireside chats" on national radio in the evenings throughout his presidency beginning in 1933. Amos 'n' Andy, while controversial for its racial stereotypes, was a pop comedy and drama start in the late 1920s on NBC radio, boasting as many as xl one thousand thousand listeners in 1930–1931 and lasting into the 1950s on radio and as a television series. Singer Bing Crosby first gained recognition on radio shows in the early 1930s, while famed one-act duo Abbott and Costello made their starting time known radio performance on The Kate Smith Hour in 1938.

The Grand Ole Opry programme, highlighting the biggest stars of the country-music genre, became extremely popular following its launch on November 28, 1925, equally a one-60 minutes, radio "barn trip the light fantastic" in Nashville, Tennessee. Its popularity swelled in the 1930s as singers and musicians performed state, bluegrass, folk, and gospel music, as well as comedic performances and skits. The show, which is nevertheless aired weekly, helped launch the careers of numerous country music luminaries such as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Bill Monroe, the Carter Family, Minnie Pearl, Dolly Parton, and Reba McEntire.

I of the near popular radio shows for immature children in the 1930s was Picayune Orphan Annie, based on a newspaper cartoon strip created by Harold Gray that first appeared in the New York Daily Newsin 1924. The strip, virtually an adventurous young girl with an equally daring pet canis familiaris named Sandy and a foster male parent called Daddy Warbucks, was enjoyed by children too as adults attracted to its political commentary targeting subjects such as organized labor, communism, and FDR'southward New Deal.

The strip was adapted to a 15-minute radio plan that debuted on WGN in 1930 before going national on NBC'due south Blue Network beginning in Apr 1931. The show was then loved that merchandise such as Annie pins became popular items for children. At its height, the radio program had an estimated six million listeners and remained on the air until 1942. In that location were ii motion picture adaptations in the 1930s, the first by David O. Selznick in 1932 for RKO and the side by side by Paramount in 1938. The show subsequently saw a huge revival every bit a theater musical, appearing first on Broadway from 1977 through 1983 and actualization internationally on stage and screen always since.

Films

Following on the dandy developments in film of the 1920s, with silent films becoming "talkies" and black-and-white films gradually turning to color, the 1930s saw the release of numerous films and other moving-motion-picture show fare that are still highly cherished today.

Past the 1930s, all of America's theaters were endemic by the Big Five studios: MGM, Paramount Pictures, RKO, Warner Bros., and 2oth Century Pull a fast one on. They released a alluvion of films to satisfy the public bedlam for escapism, a difference into a world of fantasy that provided a manner to forget the hurting and drudgery of the menstruum. Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931), Male monarch Kong (1933), The Invisible Homo (1933), The Bride of Frankenstein(1935), and The Wizard of Oz (1939) were all examples of films that strayed exterior the confines of reality. At the same time, romance and dramas such as It Happened Ane Night (1934), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), The 39 Steps(1935), and Gone with the Air current (1939) cemented themselves in the pantheon of timeless films.

Comedies were popular films in the 1930s, as a good laugh eased the mind in a fourth dimension of adversity. Charlie Chaplin was perhaps the world's biggest moving picture star, maintaining his stature as a summit box-office draw with comedies such as Metropolis Lights (1931) and Mod Times (1936). The Marx Brothers also provided pop big-screen laughs with Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932), and Duck Soup (1933).

Modern Times: Charlie Chaplin'south 1936 film, Modern Times, depicted life in the Great Depression with one-act and empathy and has been named one of the 100 greatest films.

Films depicting America'south fight against the Swell Depression became popular as well. Chaplin's Modern Times shows his character, The Trivial Tramp, fighting through the pitfalls of life during the Depression and was named to the American Motion picture Institute'south list of 100 Greatest Films. Other examples of life in the Low include A Human being'south Castle (1933) starring Spencer Tracy, Our Daily Breadstuff (1934), My Human Godfrey (1936), and the highly acclaimed Of Mice and Men (1939). Toward the late 1930s, movies from strange countries also began to play in American theaters.

The belatedly 1920s saw the emergence of Walt Disney and his eponymous studio. Disney's marquee grapheme, Mickey Mouse, made his debut in Steamboat Willie on Nov 18, 1928, at the Colony Theater in New York Urban center. Mickey would go along to star in more 120 drawing shorts, likewise every bit in The Mickey Mouse Club and other specials. This jump-started Walt Disney Studios and led to the creation of numerous other characters going into the 1930s. Beloved Disney films of the 1930s included The Three Petty Pigs (1933) and Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs (1937).

Walt Disney: Animator Walt Disney became a pioneering legend in the picture show industry with films that became pop in the 1930s including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-ushistory/chapter/the-great-depression/

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