Here are the answers to your questions: 1. The Dust Bowl consisted of parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Kansas. 2. The Dust Bowl occurred after farmers began plowing up the natural prairie grasses and planting wheat. A severe drought from 1934-1937 without the root systems of grasses to hold the soil caused massive dust storms that picked up and blew the topsoil away. 3. The novel and later movie about the Dust Bowl was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. 4. The highest unemployment percentage during the Great Depression was 25%. 5. Secretary of Treasury Mellon championed a massive tax increase, raising the income tax rate from 25

1. Definition
A worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted
until about 1947. It was the longest and most severe depression
ever experienced by the industrialized Western world, sparking
fundamental changes in economic institutions, macroeconomic
policy, and economic theory.
Chapter 11
1929-1932
Brother can you spare a dime?

2. Optimism thrived during the prosperity of the 1920’s, but it was a prosperity flawed
by, among other things, overextension of credit and inadequate worker purchasing
power. When economic well-being gave way to recession in 1929 and ultimately
depression, the shock discredited constitutional government in those nations lacking
a strong liberal tradition and already bedeviled by frustrated nationalists. Leaders
complained in Germany, Italy, and Japan that their nations did not have fair access
to raw materials, markets, and capital investment areas, all of which were necessary
for their economic health. They argued that their nations were the victims of
economic warfare—with its protective tariffs, managed currencies, and cutthroat
competition—and that they had been left behind in the race for economic self-sufficiency
and a favorable balance of trade. They made it plain that they would
fight, if necessary, for a better economic status.
Because they felt that democracy had failed, the people of those countries looked
with increasing favor on antidemocratic elements that glorified war as the means of
national salvation. In Italy, Mussolini’s cries that Italians needed both colonies and
glory struck a responsive chord. In Germany, Hitler’s National Socialists gained
power in 1933. Meanwhile Japanese militarists won a preponderant influence in the
inner circle of their government. America lost a lot of its freedoms to a socialist
method of government and strong arm tactics to confiscate the nation’s gold and

3. I. OBJ #1- Cause & Spark of the Depression
A. Causes of the Depression
1. Overproduction, too much stuff (Factories and Farms)
a. Factory Workers begin to get laid-off
- Workers cannot buy goods, even more goods are overproduced
b. Farmers Can’t Survive
- -low prices (can’t pay loans / make a living)
c. Supply & Demand- Prices Drop
2. Bank Failures
a. Banks close and loose $$$
b. People default on loans (Can’t pay back)
c. Banks cannot cover their deposits, because it was lent out to bad creditors
**5,000 banks close between 1929-1932**
d. People lose entire LIFE SAVINGS

4. Factories making too
much; Farms growing
too much
Factories fire workers
(They aren’t needed)
Farm prices fall
(Farmers can’t make $$)
Farmers & Factory Workers
can’t pay back loans to Banks:
DEFAULT!!
BANKS have NO $$
PEOPLE LOST SAVINGS & JOBS
Economy has to reset through
deflation or new markets have to be
created
The government steps in to control
Banks close because they
have no money: Loans
have not been paid back,
can’t give people their
savings

5. People Default
+ on Loans
= Banks have
no money to
give people
Banks Close
People Lose
savings

6. B. SPARK!!! Of the Depression
1. Stock Market Crash, Black Tuesday, 29 Oct 1929
a. Summer 1929, Investors begin to sell stocks
b. Supply & Demand– Massive Sell-Off and prices begin to tank
2. How???
a. Buying on Margin (Borrowing $$)
- Buy stock by just paying a small portion of what the stock
is worth—sometimes as low as
10%
ex.- 100 shares at $10= $1000 only pay $300
still owe $700
- Problem: stocks crash, margins are called in, you loose
your money and can’t payback your stock broker
- stock broker can’t pay back bank
- there is no such thing as a free lunch because the
government was not going to print more money and
devalue the purchasing power of the dollar

7. Hoover admn
started to
intervene
FDR admn
started to
intervene

8. 1. OBJ. #2 – Affects of the Depression
1. Jobless / Homeless
1. 1930-1932 – Unemployment goes from 4 to 12 million—25%
2. People are desperate!!!!
2. Blame for President Hoover
1. Said it is NOT the government’s job to help the poor. There
was no such thing as government welfare until the
government started meddling
1. Said churches, philanthropists, and other groups should help
2. PROBLEM: The Hoover administration started to help and
prolonged the recession. Hoover’s programs were expanded by
FDR and the recession turned into the Great Depression
2. People named poor places after Hoover
1. Hooverville- Shanty towns
2. Hoovermobile- cars pulled by mule
3. Hobos- look for jobs traveling the rails
4. Hooverblankets- newspapers used as blankets by homeless

11. 1. Bonus Army
1. WWI veterans who were promised a
monetary bonus in 1945
1. Veterans wanted it NOW (1932)
1. Veterans go to Washington and “camp out”
2. Hoover sends in the Army (Eisenhower,
MacArthur), used tear gas, machine guns,
and burned the camp down of our own war
veterans.

12. 1. Escaping the Depression
1. Radio- Comedies, Soap Operas
2. Movies- Shirley Temple, Child Actors
1. Snow White (first full-length animation)
2. Wizard of Oz
1. Small girl escaping the Dust Bowl
3. Literature
1. Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath
1. About a family of ‘Okies’ escaping the Dust
Bowl and how horribly they were treated
2.
Wizar
d
of
OZ

13. QUICK REVIEW:
• Causes:
• Overproduction
• Over-speculation
• Bank Closings
• Spark:
• Stock Market Crash
• Results:
• Unemployment
• Life Savings Lost

14. Great Depression
What are some affects?
What are some causes and sparks?
Definition
.

15. 1. What countries said that they were in
economic warfare?
2. Give a cause of the Great depression and
accompanying statistic?
3. Give an affect of the Great Depression
4. Who was blamed for the Great
Depression?
5. What did the Bonus Army want?

16. The Dust Bowl is a popular name for the approximately 150,000- sq./mi. (388,500-
sq./km) area that includes the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and adjacent parts
of Colorado, New Mexico, and Kansas. The area is characterized by light soil, a
low annual rainfall of 15 in. (380 mm), and high winds.
The first white settlers used the region for livestock grazing. Early in the 20th
century, however, farmers began to plow up the natural grass cover and planted
winter wheat. The area suffered from severe drought between 1934 and 1937, and
without the complex root system of the grasses to anchor it, much of the soil was
picked up by the winds. The resulting dust storms and sandstorms were so severe
that roads and houses were buried, and clouds from the storms were observed
hundreds of miles away. More than half the population left the area. The federal
government replanted grass, planted trees, and introduced scientific agricultural
methods, and as a result farming became possible again. The Dust Bowl endured
other, less severe droughts in the 1950s and ‘60s. The migration and hardships of
the Dust Bowl farmers are described in John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of
Wrath (1939).

17. 1. Natural Disaster “The Dust Bowl”
1. Great Plains suffers a huge drought (1931)
1. Causes
1. Drought—no rain
2. New technology—tractors and steel plows tear-up the prairie
grasses that was holding onto soil, drought turns open soil
into a sand box
2. Huge dust storms cover ‘Great Plains’
2. Results
1. Can’t pay banks—banks take farms
2. Many Great Plains farmers move to California
1. Try to get jobs on large farms
2. Treated poorly in California
1. ‘Oakies’ & ‘Arkies’ not wanted in the West

20.  Real GNP fell by 30% between the years 1929 and 1933.
 Unemployment at its worst was 25%
 Corporate profits were negative in 1931, 1932, and 1933.
 Hoover’s incessant meddling with the economy with government interventions turned the recession
of 1929 into the Great Depression.
 Hoover implored big business to keep wages high (which they did) while prices were falling
causing mass unemployment.
 Federal Farm Board subsidized farmers and bought their crops above world market prices to hold
the crops off the market for prices to rise. Canada and Argentina filled the world void and America
was stuck with the crops. There were too many farmers!
 Smoot-Hawley Tariff increased the price of exports by 59% and foreign countries retaliated against
us, especially the automobile industry.
 Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, did an about-face and championed a massive tax
increase from 25% to 63%. Vast spending on public-works in 4 years out spent the previous 30
years.

21. Great
Depressio
Dust Bowl Statistics
n
Examples Examples

22. 1. What states does the Dust Bowl consist of?
2. How did the Dust Bowl occur?
3. What novel, later movie, was written about
the Dust Bowl?
4. What was the highest unemployment
percentage?
5. What did Secretary of Treasury Mellon do
with the income tax rate?