Section 4 Flashcards
During the 1930s, states from Texas to the Dakotas suffered a what? What did the area become known as?
Severe drought. The Dust Bowl.
What happened during dust bowls?
Top soil dried out and high winds carried the soil away in blinding dust storms.
What caused the dustbowl?
Years of overgrazing by cattle, and plowing by farmers destroyed the grasses that once held the soil in place.
The ______ dried out the soil, and the _____ _____ blew it away.
drought, high winds.
Who were the hardest hit by the duststorms?
Poor farmers in Oklahoma and other Great Plains states.
What did poor farmers do when they were majorly affected by the dust storms?
They packed their belongings into cars and trucks and headed west.
What did they become?
Migrant workers.
What were migrant workers?
People who move from one region to another in search of work.
When the migrants reached the West Coast, what was their new hardship they faced?
They were not wanted. Sometimes angry crowds blocked the way and sent the migrants away.
What took on added importance during the depression?
Traditional roles.
To help pay the rent what did women do?
Took in laundry or borders.
What special problems did working
women face?
Employers hired men before they would hire a woman, and the federal government refused to hire a woman if her husband had a job.
What was the percentage of increasing marriages of women in the workforce?
52%
What did some women do for better pay when employers lowered their wages?
Went on strike.
What was Eleanor Roosevelt’s new role for the First Lady?
She toured around the nation as the president’s eyes and ears and used her position to speak out for women’s rights.
Who were the first to lose their jobs when hard times hit?
African American workers.
What else happened to African Americans during hard times?
They were often denied public works, and some charities even refused to serve blacks.
What did Eleanor Roosevelt and others close to the president urge him to do?
They urged him to improve the situation of African-Americans.
Who were the unofficial black advisors that FDR invited into the White House?
The black cabinet.
Who was the first African-American to head a government agency?
Mary McLeod Bethune.
Whose advice did Roosevelt often follow?
The black cabinet.
When African-American leaders pressed the president to support an anti-lynching law, what did she do?
Refused.
What support did the president fear he would lose?
Southerners in Congress.
Who did many black leaders call on to obtain their civil rights?
African-Americans.
What are civil rights?
The rights due to all citizens.
What did Mexican-American farmworkers in the west and southwest face?
Discrimination in education and jobs and at the polls.
In good times what did employers encourage Mexicans to do?
Come north to work.
What hard time struck what did many Americans want Mexicans to do?
They wanted the Mexicans to be sent back to Mexico.
About how many people were rounded up and sent to Mexico?
More than 400,000 people.
Who did some Americans resent who competed with them for jobs?
Asian workers.
What did the government sought to reduce?
The number of Asians in the United States.
In 1935, FDR signed a law for Filipinos. What it do?
It was a law that provided free transportation for Filipinos who agreed to return to the Philippines and not come back.
In 1924, what did Congress make all Native Americans?
American citizens.
And the 1930s, what was the name of the series of laws that Congress passed?
The Indian new deal.
What did the Indian new deal do?
It gave Native American nations greater control over their own affairs.
Who was the head of the Bureau of Indian affairs?
John collier.
What did John Collier end?
He ended the government policy of breaking up Indian landholdings.
What did the Indian reorganization act do?
Protected and expanded landholdings of Native American reservations.
What did the Roosevelt administration let Indian reservations do?
Organize corporations and develop their own business projects.
What did the Indian emergency conservation workgroup do?
Employed Indians in soil erosion control, irrigation, and land development.
Who portrayed the hardships of depression life?
Artists.
What did John Steinbeck tell the story of in his novel the grapes of wrath?
The story of the Okies streaming over the mountains trying to find new homes in California.
Who painted huge murals of frontier life?
Thomas Hart Benton.
Who painted American Gothic?
Grant Wood.
Who did the government send out to create a lasting record of American life during the Great Depression?
Photographers.
What comedians made people forget about their troubles?
George Burns and Gracie Allen.
What were daytime radio shows?
They told stories of families, and they were soap operas.
What was the most famous radio broadcast?
When on Halloween night, Orson Wells presented to newscast based on a science fiction novel, the war of the worlds. Many people mistook the program for the real newscast and frantically sought ways to escape the Martian invasion.
To help escape the depression, what did movies tell stories of?
Optimistic stories of love and success.
What child star became hugely popular?
Shirley Temple.
What was the first full-length animated film?
Snow White and the seven dwarfs.
Judy Garland won American hearts in what movie?
The Wizard of Oz.
What was the most expensively made and the most popular movie of the 1930s?
Gone with the wind.
What did the movie “gone with the wind” make people feel?
It made people feel that Americans had survived hard times before and that they could do it again.
