Great Depression

Examples of Great Depression in the following topics:

• Hooverville

  • Homelessness exploded during the Great Depression resulting in the massive outgrowth of shanty towns, called in that period ‘Hoovervilles'.
  • "Hooverville" was the popular name for shanty towns built by homeless people during the Great Depression.
  • They were bitingly named after Herbert Hoover, then President of the United States, because he had allegedly allowed the nation to slide into depression.
  • Homelessness was present before the Great Depression, with homeless people being a fairly common sight in the 1920s.

• Hoover and the Limits of Individualism

  • Hoover carried his "rugged individualism" into the Great Depression, believing that the government shouldn't interfere.
  • Regarding poverty, Hoover said that "given the chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, we shall soon, with the help 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. " Mere months after Hoover made these statements, however, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 occurred, and the world's economy spiraled downward into the Great Depression.
  • Hoover carried his idea of "rugged individualism" into the Great Depression, insisting that the federal government should not interfere with the American people during the economic crisis.

• The Great Depression

  • The Great Depression was a decade-long period of poverty and unemployment that followed the 1929 stock market crash.
  • Although its exact causes are still debated, there were several events that inevitably caused the Great Depression.
  • The agricultural losses were especially acute in the Great Depression.
  • Yet international influences also contributed to the Great Depression.
  • Economists still dispute how much weight to give the stock market crash of October 1929 as a cause of the Great Depression.

• The Election of 1932

  • The Great Depression and thus the economy was the dominant issue during the presidential election of 1932 between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and incumbent Herbert Hoover.
  • As the presidential election of 1932 took place in the midst of the Great Depression, the economy was unsurprisingly the dominant issue.
  • Although the Great Depression hit countries all around the world, Hoover was held largely responsible for the consequences of the crisis in the United States.
  • As Hoover's presidency was now defined by the Great Depression, his political attacks on Roosevelt did not convince the voters.
  • Once again, the Great Depression was in the center of everyone's attention.

• Culture in the Thirties

  • Despite the Great Depression, culture in the 1930s, both commercial and funded by New Deal programs as part of the relief effort, flourished.
  • Despite the Great Depression' devastating impact on many Americans, the 1930s witnessed the emergence of many influential cultural trends.
  • The works of such photographers as Dorothea Lange or Walker Evans remain among the most iconic images of the Great Depression.
  • The Great Depression era produced some of the greatest works in American literature.
  • Other important literary works of the Great Depression era that reached the status of American classics include: William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!

• Competing Solutions

  • While Hoover's response to the Great Depression was initially too narrow and more decisive actions came too late, Roosevelt's New Deal drew on some of Hoover's ideas but proposed a series of sweeping reforms and programs.
  • The Great Depression eventually hit both poor and rich countries around the world but in the United States, political opponents and the public blamed the president for the disastrous economic situation.
  • Hoover's response to the Great Depression is also associated with three other critical pieces of legislation.
  • Roosevelt's response to the Great Depression not only contrasted with his campaign rhetoric but also built upon some of the initiatives introduced by Hoover.
  • Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression

• The Human Toll

  • The Great Depression caused widespread homelessness and illness, fueled discrimination, and increased migrant labor.
  • The Great Depression of the 1930s brought thousands of people, and even entire regions of the country, to their knees.
  • Americans primarily migrated west looking for work, although most found economic conditions little better than the ones they had left, given the pervasiveness of the Great Depression throughout the country.
  • Farm equipment in South Dakota is left half exposed by one of the many wind storms that swept across the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl period of the Great Depression in the 1930s.
  • Describe some of the suffering the Great Depression brought upon Americans

• A Halfway Revolution

  • Roosevelt came to office in 1933 amid the economic calamity of the Great Depression, offering the nation a New Deal intended to alleviate economic desperation and joblessness, provide greater opportunities, and restore prosperity.
  • The Great Depression dragged on through the early and middle 1930s, showing signs of relief later in the decade, though full recovery didn't come until the total mobilization of U.S. economic, social, and military resources for the Allied cause in World War II.
  • The New Deal programs to relieve the Depression are generally regarded as a mixed success in ending the nation's economic problems on a macroeconomic level.
  • Still, although fundamental economic indicators may have remained depressed, the programs of the New Deal were extremely popular, as they improved the life of the common citizen, by providing jobs for the unemployed, legal protection for labor unionists, modern utilities for rural America, living wages for the working poor, and price stability for the family farmer.
  • Social welfare programs were virtually non-existent until the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the implementation of the New Deal programs in response to the Great Depression.

• The Inauguration

  • Roosevelt's 1933 inauguration speech addressed the roots of the Depression and instilled confidence in overcoming difficulties.
  • With the nation in the grips of the Great Depression, the new president's inaugural speech was awaited with great anticipation.
  • In the 1,883-word, 20 minute-long address, Roosevelt outlined his views on the the roots of the Depression, its moral dimensions, and his and the government's role in solving it.
  • More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return.
  • With his inaugural speech, Roosevelt thus set the stage for the New Deal; the large-scale, liberal response to the Great Depression, and one of the more significant and controversial eras of policy-making in the nation's history.

• Congressional Initiatives

  • Hoover attempted to counter the effects of the Depression through various Congressional initiatives, including public works and tax reforms.
  • By 1932, the Great Depression had spread across the globe.
  • To pay for these and other government programs, and to make up for revenue lost due to the Depression, Hoover agreed to roll back several tax cuts that his Administration had enacted on higher-bracket incomes.
  • Prior to the start of the Depression, Hoover's first Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, (under Presidents Warren G.
  • When combined with the sharp decline in incomes during the early Depression, the result was a serious deficit in the federal budget.