1. The Causes of
the Great
Depression
What caused the most severe economic crisis
in American History?

2. Speculative Boom Leads
to a Spectacular Crash
• bull market
• buying on margin
• encouraged
speculation
• 10/29/1929, Black
Tuesday
• bear market

3. Banking Crisis
• banks lend $ to earn interest
• stockbrokers
• bank runs
• depositors withdraw cash
• 1933, 1/5 banks failed 9,000 in the
1930s
• 9 million lose life savings
•

4. “It’s a wonderful life”
Bank Run

5. Too Much for Sale, Too
Little To Spend
• overproduction • underconsumption
• more products are • people were not
being created than buying as much as
people can afford the economy was
to buy producing
• widening wealth • farms
gap
• industry,
• 1921-1929, personal production
debt doubled declined,
unemployment

6. initial Government
Actions
• Federal Reserve System,
manages nation’s $ supply
• increased the discount rate
• $ supply dropped 1/3
• Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act
• high tariff that hurt
foreign sales

7. Response to
the Economic
Collapse
How did the federal
government respond to
the economic collapse
that began in 1929?

9. Ideological Responses
• Conservative
• status quo, business
cycle
• Liberal
• public works, social
welfare
• Radical
“Civilization”
• socialism, communism

10. Hoover’s Conservative
Response
• Hoovervilles
• homeless “cities”
• Reconstruction Finance
Corporation
• gov. loans to banks,
RRs, and big
businesses
• trickle down theory

11. Hoover Battles the
Bonus Army

12. Hoover Battles the
Bonus Army

13. Election of 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(FDR) promised, “a new deal
for the American people.”

14. FDR’s First
Hundred
Days
FDR took office in 1933.
Congress enacted many
programs to provide
relief, promote
recovery, and enact
reforms.

15. The Human Impact How did ordinary
of the Great Americans endure the
hardships of the Great
Depression Depression?

16. Brother, can
you spare a
dime?
1. How does the tempo make
you feel?
2. What did the singer do
before the great depression?
Now?
3. How does the photo reflect
what you hear and feel while
listening?
4. In what ways do you think
people endured the hardships
of the great Depression?

17. Brother, can
you spare a
dime?
1. How does the tempo make
you feel?
2. What did the singer do
before the great depression?
Now?
3. How does the photo reflect
what you hear and feel while
listening?
4. In what ways do you think
people endured the hardships
of the great Depression?

18. A Country in Economic
Disaster
• 1933-25% unemployment
• African American, 50%
unemployment
• women couldn’t work if husband
earned a “living wage”
• property values decreased,
foreclosure increased
• psychological stress
• marriage, divorce, and birth
rates declined

19. “Ill-Housed, Ill-Clad,
Ill-Nourished”
• evictions forced people
out of homes
• men deserted families,
teenagers left home
• malnutrition
• soup kitchens
• breadlines

20. The Dust Bowl
• desertification
• drought, overproduction of
crops, high winds
• The Grapes of Wrath by John
Steinbeck
• depopulation
• “Okies” migrated to CA for
farm work

21. The Dust Bowl
• desertification
• drought, overproduction of
crops, high winds
• The Grapes of Wrath by John
Steinbeck
• depopulation
• “Okies” migrated to CA for
farm work