Chapter 9 – The Great Depression

Intro questionImagine this: you come home from school and your parents are outside your house with piles of items from inside. They say to you that they have lost everything they had in savings and they also have lost their jobs. They ask you to come up with a plan as to how they are going to survive. Write down a plan for survival for you and your family. What would you do?

How did the U.S. go from this in the 1920s…..

DON’T STOP THE PARTY!!!!!

To this in the 1930s…

The Causes of the Great Depression

The Stock Market CrashIn early 1928, stocks began

a steady climb for 1 ½ years This is called a BULL

MARKET

Normal American

The rapid growth made “easy” money possible and infected

Americans with speculative fever people were able to get easy credit

Guess What???!!!I got a fever!!!Think of “more cowbell” as more speculation, more credit, and more investing!!!

October 29, 1929 BLACK TUESDAYThis practice along with

other causes led to…

Dow Jones (an index of stocks) fell 43%

The crash of the stock market was the first visible sign of a disaster that had been building for years.

What would you do? If there was a way to make easy money with hardly any risk, would you do it?

Capitalist Economy

1920s

Oct. 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday)

CAUSES OF THE GREAT DEPRESSIONLow Interest Rates Federal Reserve kept interest rates low; companies

borrowed money and expanded more than necessary.

Overproduction Companies made more goods than could be sold.

Uneven Distribution of Wealth

Not everyone who wanted consumer goods could afford to buy them.

High Tariffs Tariffs restricted foreign demand for American goods.

Falling Demand With too many goods unsold, production was cut back and employees were laid off.

Stock Market Speculation

Low interest rates encouraged borrowing money to speculate, endangering bank wealth

Why do people put money in a bank?

What does the bank do with your money?

What would you do if your heard your bank was running out of money?

BANK RUNS

Life During The Great Depression

Unemployment and Relief

Unemployment reached record numbers bringing much despair to Americans especially men…why?

Many Americans looked to state and local government for assistance; however, they were ill-equipped to handle the magnitude of the situation

RESULT…BREADLINES ROOTING

THROUGH TRASHSHANTYTOWNS (HOOVERVILLES)

Example of a Shantytown or Hooverville

Do you know where this is?

What do the majority of these forms of entertainment have in common?

Depression Art and Entertainment

Literature Radio Movies Journalism

John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of

Wrath

Adventures – Dick Tracy, The

Lone Ranger

Soap Operas

Brought the country together through

shared experiences

Walt Disney

The Wizard of Oz

Gone With the Wind

Life Magazine(1936)

Depression hits Farmers

1/3 lost their land

Farm income dropped

dramatically

A huge drought led to the “Dust

Bowl”