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”