What were the effects of the Depression on
the American people?
... the most serious economic depression the world had ever seen...
Ben Walsh, GCSE Modern
World History (2004)
commenting on the different
theories about why the USA fell into depression.
To study this properly, you will need to find
out the usual information about the
terrible effects of the Depression.
However, you may be interested in some evidence
that suggest that the disaster was
not as bad as it is often painted.
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Links
Overview from History Learning site
Dummies: A good page of interesting ideas
A photo essay - excellent pictures
Songs of the Depression
Explore:
America in the 1930s
the
Library of Congress site
Michigan Museum
Memories
Effects: includes
effects on other countries
Spidergram:
Schoolhistory spidergrams on:
The govt and the Depression
Effects of the Depression
Powerpoints:
Overview of the 1920s and 1930s
Simple account
Good study including
Hoover's
response
C Carter slideshows:
1
2
YouTube:
The Great
Depression - overview
Scenes from
the Depression - excellent
The Great
Depression
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These are the 'facts' of the Depression as you
will see them presented in most textbooks.
(Some
Farmers Were Handling Hardship Very Badly)
1. Statistics:
●
In 1931, 238 people were admitted to
hospital suffering from starvation.
●
International trade slumped from $10bn in 1929 to
only $3 bn in 1932.
●
5000 banks went bankrupt 1929-1932, including the
Bank of America.
●
In 1932 a quarter of a million Americans had
their homes repossessed, and a fifth of all farmers lost their
farms.
●
In 1932, 20,000 companies went out of business.
●
By 1933:
- Industrial production had fallen by 40%
- Prices had fallen 50%
- Wages had fallen by 60%
- Share prices had fallen by 80%
- 5000 more banks went bankrupt.
- 25% of Americans were unemployed.
2. Farmers:
● The depression was particularly fierce in
agriculture, and things were made worse by the ‘dust bowl’
caused by over-farming.
● Many farmers could not afford their mortgage
repayments and many ‘Okies’ (from Oklahoma) and ‘Arkies’ (from
Arkansas) had to abandon their farms and go fruit-picking in
California (the famous novel The Grapes of Wrath is about
this).
3. Welfare
and Despair:
● America and no Welfare
State. Many unemployed Americans were reduced to picking over
rubbish dumps or begging (cf the song ‘Buddy, can you spare a
dime’).
● SOME towns set up soup kitchens and groups like
the Salvation Army (and even Al Capone) organised charity
hand-outs – hence the term ‘on the breadline’.
● In the land of opportunity this was seen as a
terrible failure, and 23,000 people committed suicide in 1932
alone.
4. Hobos
and Hoovervilles:
●
Homeless people went to live in shanty towns called
‘Hoovervilles’ (as an insult to President Hoover). ‘Hobos’
travelled round looking for jobs, usually riding illegally on
freight trucks.
5. Hatred
of Hoover:
● The
government did not know how to stop the
Depression, and Hoover believed in ‘rugged individualism’, and
stuck to the idea that it was not the government’s job to
interfere with business.
● In 1930 the
n
1931 the Fed raised interest rates, and in 1932 the government
raised taxes - all three simply made the Depression much worse.
●
Most Americans came to blame the President for the Depression. Shanty towns were
called ‘Hoovervilles’, but there was also ‘Hoover leather’
(cardboard soles for shoes) and ‘Hoover blankets’
(newspapers). ‘In Hoover we trusted, but now we are busted’.
6. Violence:
●
There were many protest marches and riots.
When banks tried to re-possess some farms, local farmer banded
together and drove them off with pitch-forks.
7. Bonus
Army:
● In
1932, 20,000 unemployed ex-soldiers set up a Hooverville in
Washington to ask for their war pension (‘bonus’) to be paid
early; Hoover set the army on them, who drive them away with
guns and tear-gas.
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Source A
Last
summer, in the hot weather, when the smell was sickening and the
flies were thick, there were 100 people a day coming to the
dumps. A widow, who used to do housework and
laundry, but now had no work at all, fed herself and her
14-year-old son on garbage. before she picked up the
meat she would always take off her glasses so that she couldn't
see the maggots.
New Republic magazine (1933)
Source B
There is
not an unemployed man in the country that hasn't contributed to
the wealth of every millionaire in America. The
working classes didn't bring this on, it was the big boys...
We've got
more wheat, more food, more cotton, more money in the banks,
more everything in the world than any other nation that ever
lived ever had, yet we are starving to death. We are
the first nation in the history of the world to go to the
poorhouse in an automobile.
Will Rodgers (1931)
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1. Hoover did not do nothing:
● In 1930 he cut taxes and
the
● In 1931 he gave $4000 million to state
governments to set up schemes to provide work (e.g. the Hoover
Dam). The
encouraged firms to maintain high wages
● In 1932 he passed the Emergency Relief Act ($300
million to provide unemployment pay) and the Reconstruction Act
(which set up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to provide
$1500 million of loans to help businessmen). The N
All this is usually either not mentioned at all,
or dismissed as ‘too little, too late’. In fact, it was
exactly what the ‘New Deal’ was later to copy.
2. Not all industries or places suffered:
●
The Depression was worst in farming, and in the old industries
(80% of steel workers were unemployed in Toledo.
'New' industries (such as films, electronics and airplanes) continued to expand and
pay high wages.
● Many people who managed to keep their jobs
were BETTER off, because prices were much lower.
● Certain areas of the economy thrived.
The
Empire State Building was finished in 1931, and the San
Francisco Golden Gate Bridge was started in 1932
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