Key words (T2)

Question 1

Economic Depression

Answer 1

• A sustained, long-term downturn in economic activity in one or more economies.
• 1929-1938 the Great Depression was the worst form of its kind in the industrialised countries it affected. Human cost was devastating.

Question 2

Growth of Unemployment

Answer 2

• Unemployment went from 3.2% (1929) to 25.2% (1933)
• About 12,830,000 people unemployed and suffering.
• By 1933 the Depression covered the whole of the USA, (black Americans and women particular victims)

Question 3

Collapse of Gross Domestic Product

Answer 3

• The total value of goods produced and services provided in a country during one year.
• 1933 –> was half of what it had been in 1929, meaning that what America was producing and selling plumited.

Question 4

Herbert Hoover

Answer 4

Republican President: 1929-1933.

Although he intervened more than any other previous President, he was ill equipped to deal with the devastating effects of the Depression and was pretty unsuccessful.

Question 5

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff

Answer 5

• One of Hoover’s unsuccessful measures.
• This tax was enforced in June 1930
• Raised the tariffs paid by other countries to sell their goods in America up to 40% (the highest ever in USA). This was designed to protect US industry, but in fact stifled international trade.

Question 6

Homelessness and Hoovervilles

Answer 6

Shanty towns grew of temporary homes of the many homeless people during this time.

Hoover gave no direct relief to help, any money that was given was not supposed to be a free “hand-out” as Hoover believed this would ruin self-help.

Instead money could be borrowed by those unemployed.

Question 7

The Dust Bowl

Answer 7

The Dust Bowl, (aka the Dirty Thirties), was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods

Question 8

Other measures by Hoover

Answer 8

The Reconstruction Finance Corporation

Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932

Question 9

What is a recession?

Answer 9

• A slowdown in economic activity over the course of a normal business cycle

Question 10

Is a depression or a recession more severe?

Answer 10

Depression is more severe

Question 11

What was The Reconstruction Finance Corporation

Answer 11

Set up in 1932 with authority to lend up to $2 billion to rescue banks and other financial institutions in distress. The biggest banks ended up being given the most money, meaning smaller banks failed.

Question 12

What was The Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932

Answer 12

In order to be given this relief, states had to declare themselves bankrupt - many felt that Hoover had gone way too far