Flappers, Depression & Global War

1920 - 1945

Ms. Adams

The Impact of the Boll Weevil

The Destruction of King Cotton• Appeared in

Southwest Georgia in 1915 and spread across the state.

• 1914 = 2,800,000 cotton bales produced

• 1924 = only 600,000

http://entweb.clemson.edu/pesticid/100years/100yrG.htm

The Big Drought• In 1924, Georgia farmers were his with another natural disaster – a major drought. The sun-baked fields slowed down the destruction of the boll weevil but the drought ruined all of Georgia’s other crops. Over 375,000 farm

workers left Georgia between 1920 and 1925 and the

number of working farms greatly depleted. When

farms failed, banks were not able to get bank money

loaned from them and banks began to fail. Many other

farm-related businesses had to close.

1. What impact did the Boll Weevil and the drought of the

1920’s have on Georgians?

Economic Factors that Resulted in the Great

Depression

1. Bank Loans2. Agricultural Bust3. Tariffs on Goods4. Stock Market

Crash of 1929 5. Laissez-Faire

Policy

Bank Loans & Agricultural Bust

• People took out loans in the 1920’s and produced way too much food. Over production of agricultural products caused the demand to fall and farmers were not making money on their goods. They could not pay banks back. Many banks went out of business and people lost their money.

Tariffs on Goods

* After WWI people wanted to trade with other countries but in order to repay war debts the U.S. put tariffs on goods. No one could afford to buy the goods and the U.S. did not make money to repay war debts.

Stock Market Crash of 1929

& Laissez-Faire Policy• Stock Market

Crash• “Black Tuesday” –

October 29, 1929• Many lost

everything they had.

• Laissez-Faire Policy

• The idea that the economy can fix itself without government intervention

2. What economic factors do we have in common at

this time with the economic factors that

created the Great Depression?

Life During the Depression

• 1 out of 4 Americans were unemployed

• There was no welfare or food stamps• If you didn’t have money – you didn’t

have a home and you couldn’t eat

3. What government aids did the people during the

1930’s not have that would have made the Depression

easier?

FDR & the New Deal

• Read p. 391 in the blue book

The New Deal

• AAA – Agricultural Adjustment Administration

• REA – Rural Electrification Administration

• CCC – Civilian Conservation Corp• WPA – Works Programs Administration• The Social Security Act – System for

retirement and unemployment• Labor and the New Deal

Impact of the CCC Corp

• The Civilian Conservation Corp was a public works program that put more than three million young men and adults to work building roads and trails in parks, building conservation dams, building campgrounds, planting trees, draining swamps, replanting grazing land, renovating historic buildings and stringing telephone lines.

• The CCC impact in Georgia is measured by the structures still standing and the stories of the ones that have passed. Kennesaw Mountain NBP, Cloudland Canyon, Fort Mountain, Vogel, Unicoi, Moccasin Creek, Hard Labor Creek, Chickamauga - Chattanooga National Military Park, Lake Conasauga, the Pocket, and Lake Winfield Scott, bear structures created by the Corps. Brasstown Bald, and The Appalachian Trail, including the shelter on Blood Mountain and an inn at Neels Gap now known as Walesi-yi are also part of the legacy.

1939 photo of Vogel Lodge (now Walasi-yi) This photo, taken two years after completion of the lodge shows the building looking from the south end.

AAA• Its purpose was to

help farmers by reducing production of staple crops, thus raising farm prices and encouraging more diversified farming. The government paid them for the crops they didn’t crow – subsidies.

Impact of the Agricultural Adjustment Act

• In Georgia, the federal government paid farmers to plant less cotton as a means of restricting the supply and driving up the price.

• This did serve to increase the price of cotton but mostly helped the large scale cotton growers. It did little to help the sharecroppers.

REARural Electrification

* Read p. 395

4. How did people take baths, wash clothes, keep food refrigerated and process foods before electricity?

5. What electrical devises helped farmers out with their daily lives?

Social Security

• Takes money out of your check to save for when you get older. A system established for retirement or for the inability to work.

6. What do you think happened to people before 1935 when

they got too old to work?

7. What do you think happened to individuals who had mental

problems or who were disabled before 1935?

Eugene Talmadge

• Governor of Georgia from 1933 – 1935• Dramatic/fiery politician• Compared himself to Tom Watson –

especially when trying to get rural votes

• He “stumped the state” and carried a stump on which he God Almighty and Eugene Herman Talmadge

• Conservative White Supremacist who disliked the Federal government coming in to give Georgia economic relief

• Tried to rid the state of Neal Deal programs – so the Federal government had to come in to enforce the programs

• Fired everyone that did not support him and would declare Martial Law – bringing in the National Guard to arrest and seize people he wanted out of office and arrest strikers

• After two terms he ran for Senator and was soundly defeated by Richard B. Russell.

8. What are the different ways in which Eugene Talmadge proved himself to

be crazy?

WWII

• Read p. 138 – 141 in the CRCT silently

• Lend-Lease Act• Bombing of Pearl Harbor

Lend Lease Act

• lend-lease, arrangement for the transfer of war supplies, including food, machinery, and services, to nations whose defense was considered vital to the defense of the United States in World War II. The Lend-Lease Act, passed (1941) by the U.S. Congress, gave the President power to sell, transfer, lend, or lease such war materials. The President was to set the terms for aid; repayment was to be “in kind or property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory.”

Bombing of Pearl Harbor

9. How did the Lend-Lease Act bring the United States into the war?

10. How did the bombing of Pearl Harbor bring the United States into

the war?

Georgia’s Involvement in WWII

• Military bases• Brunswick and Savannah Shipyards• Bell Aircraft Company• Read p. 413 blue book

Military Bases

11. How did Georgia’s military bases contribute to the WWII efforts?

12. How did Georgia’s military bases contribute to Georgia’s economy?

http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/localList.php?local=11&locTGroup=Military_bases&direction=down&sec=0

Savannah & Brunswick Shipyard

13. What were ships from Georgia called?

14. What amazing thing did the Brunswick shipyard do during the

war?

Bell Aircraft

15. What did the Bell Aircraft Company make?

16. After WWII was over, how did these war-time facilities change Georgia?

Richard B. Russell• Richard B. Russell Jr. Richard B.

Russell Jr.served in public office for fifty years as a state legislator, governor of Georgia, and U.S. senator.

• Best known for his efforts to strengthen the national defense and to oppose civil rights legislation.

• He favored his role as advocate for the small farmer and for soil and water conservation.

• Russell also worked to bring economic opportunities to Georgia. He helped to secure or maintain fifteen military installations; more than twenty-five research facilities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Russell Agricultural Research Center.

• Russell believed that his most important legislative contribution was his authorship and secured passage of the National School Lunch Program in 1946.

• Even though I forgot to ask you a question about this man on your

paper please write 2 facts about him on the back.

Carl Vinson• “Father of the Two-Ocean

Navy”• Served as a House

Representative from 1914 – 1965

• Had major influence in promoting national defense through WWII and the Cold War against Russia

• Pushed a bill that created 10,000 new planes, trained 16,000 new pilots and established 2 new air bases.

• Georgia’s economy depended so heavily on the military installations and thanked him for creating them.

Carl Vinson

• President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the Carl Vinson Presidential Medal of freedom.

• President Nixon named America’s 3rd Nuclear carrier after him.

• He died in 1981 at the age of 98

17. Give 3 facts about Carl Vinson.

Holocaust & Georgia

• Georgia’s Holocaust Commission• http://holocaust.georgia.gov/02/gch/

home/0,2454,24114746,00.html

18. What is Georgia’s Holocaust Commission?

President Roosevelt & Georgia

• Franklin D. Roosevelt in Georgia• Between FDR at Warm Springs1924 and

1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Warm Springs and Georgia forty-one times. In the early years, he spent his days exercising at the pools at the Warm Springs resort as he tried to rebuild his leg muscles from the debilitating effects of polio. After being elected as the thirty-second president of the United States in 1932, he used his new home at Warm Springs, "The Little White House," as a retreat from the rigors of leading a nation through the Great Depression. He died there in 1945. To a generation of west Georgians, he was both the president and a trusted friend who could be seen waving as he passed by in his convertible or rode by in a train on his way to the nation's capital.

Warm Springs, Georgia

Read p. 408 in the Blue Book – “Georgia Loses a Friend”

19. What was Georgia’s connection to Roosevelt?