Chapter 11- The Great Depression Flashcards
Collapse
Economy began to collapse in the year of 1929
A sudden loss in force or value
Alfred E Smith
Four time governor of New York
Was a runner for president being catholic interfered
Stock market
Being able to buy stocks and make easy money
Bull market
Long period of rising stocks
Invest
Putting money in something to gain more in the future
Many stocks convinced people to invest into them
10% of American households owned stocks
Margin
Buying some stock with your money and borrowing the rest
Margin call
Demand by a broker that investors pay back loans made for stocks
Speculation
-Act of buying stocks at great risk with the anticipation that the price will rise
Black Tuesday
- The day almost 16 million shares of stock were sold
- The stock market lost between $10 billion and $15 billion in value
Sum
A specified amount of money
Because of Black Tuesday, some $30 billion was lost, a sum roughly equal to the total wages Americans earned in 1929
Bank run
Many people going to the bank at one time, causing many banks to close down for not having enough money to be able to support how much they owed
Installment
Being able to buy something on credit then later paying it off
Didn’t help the government at all
Suspend
Temporarily to top an operation
1,352 banks had to suspend operations in 1930
Bailiff
Minor officer of the courts
They ejected the nonpaying tenants, piling their belongings in the street
Hobo
Someone that tried to better their life by traveling on freight trains to get to somewhere better to start new
Dust bowl
Because of crop prices dropping in the 1920s, farmers left their fields uncultivated
Then a terrible drought struck the Great Plains
With neither grass nor wheat to hold the scant rainfall, the soil dried to dust
-From the Dakotas to Texas, America’s wheat fields became a vast “Dust Bowl”
Walt Disney
first motion picture was Snow White (reflection of the Great Depression)
brought Mickey Mouse to life in 1928
Colleague
Someone who worked in a same profession as you
Jimmy Stewart played a naive scout leader who becomes a senator. He exposes the corruption of some of his colleagues and calls upon senators to view American government as a high achievement
Soap opera
A serial drama on television or radio
The shows sponsors were often makers of laundry soaps, so the shows were nicknamed soap operas
John Steinbeck
A writer who added gouge to his novels adding sympathy for those in poverty
William Faulkner
Won the novel prize for literature
Technique
A way how to get to a desired destination
William Faulkner used a stream of consciousness technique, exposing hidden attitudes of Southern whites and African Americans in a fictional Mississippi count
Grant wood
Painter in the 1930s whose styles were referred to as the regionalist school
His work emphasized traditional American values, especially those of the rural Midwest and South
Series
A number of events that come one after another
To devise strategies for improving the economy, Hoover organized a series of conferences, bringing together the heads of banks, railroads, and other big businesses, as well as labor leaders and government officials
Public works
Government financed projects
Community
People with common interests living in the same areap
The NCC created a pool of money that allowed troubled banks to continue lending money in their communities. This program, however, failed to meet the nation’s needs
Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)
Set up in 1932 to make loans to businesses
Relief
Money automatically given to prove risked families
Foreclose
To take possession of a property from a mortgagor because of defaults on payments
Creditors foreclosed on nearly one million farms between 1930 and 1934, taking ownership f the land and evicting the families
Bonus army
Veterans wearing ragged military uniforms trudging along the highways or rode the rails singing old war songs to lobby for passage of the legislation that would authorize early payment of the bonuses
