The Great Depression Flashcards
When did the Great depression hit?
1929 after the wall street crash
What caused the wall street crash?
The Banking crisis and the Dust Bowl
What was the banking crisis?
Many banks had been using peoples savings to gamble on the stock market and get a large profit from it, when the stock market crashed all the banks lost many people’s savings.
What was the Dust Bowl?
Years of overfarming and poor weather conditions lead to 20 hectares worth of land becoming worthless desert due to the infertile dust.
What was making the Dust Bowl worse?
The storms were whipping up dust and destroying previously fertile land.
What was happening to Farm income?
Farm income was decimated
In 1929 (initially) how many banks failed? By 1931 what had this increased to?
659 banks failed in 1929, which increased up to 2300 in 1931.
What was the main effect of the banking crisis?
People were unwilling to spend their money as they no longer trusted the banks. This had a significant effect on the economy.
What were some main ways to show the economy was declining?
Factories had to lower wages, there was a 60% decrease in average wages and unemployment hit 14 million.
What happened to people who could no longer pay their rent?
They became homeless and started to set up “Hoovervilles” which were makeshift shelters set up in the streets. This was because many people blamed President Hoover for the crisis.
How was Hoover useless in helping the people in the Great Depression?
Many described him saying, “Hoover did little to help” which was probably because of his laissez faire attitude towards helping the people. He believed that this attitude encouraged hard work amongst the people.
How did Hoover help in the Great Depression?
Hoover cut taxes by $130 millions to try and stimulate spending.
Met with business leaders and persuaded them to not cut wages.
Hawley-smoot tariff act designed to help farmers as it increased tax on foreign food(1930) however this lead to some countries refusing to trade with America at all anymore.
What shows us how bad the poverty levels were?
Some people deliberately committed crimes so that they were arrested and then kept in a cell with a bed and food.
What was the Emergency Banking Act?
Roosevelt only restored the most trustworthy banks and also supported them with government loans to reassure depositors. New banks were not allowed to invest so recklessly in the stock market either.
What did Roosevelt promise?
Action and action now! (end to laissez-faire attitude)
