Twentieth Century America

Mass media and communications Radio: Broadcast jazz and Fireside Chats Movies: Provided escape from Depression-era realities Newspapers and magazines: Shaped cultural norms and sparked fads

Speakeasies and Prohibition

Challenges to traditional values Traditional religion - Darwin’s Theory, the Scopes Trial Traditional role of women: Flappers, 19th Amendment Open immigration: Rise of new Ku Klux Klan (KKK) Prohibition: Smuggling alcohol and speakeasies

Causes of the stock market crash of 1929 Business was booming, but 1.investments were made with borrowed money (over speculation). 2. There was excessive expansion of credit. 3. Business failures led to bankruptcies. Bank deposits were invested in the market. 4. When the market collapsed, 5. the banks ran out of money.

Consequences of the stock market crash of 1929 Clients panicked, attempting to withdraw their money from the banks, but there was nothing to give them. There were no new investments.

President Hoover and the Great Depression   The stock market crashed on  Thursday, October 24, 1929, less than eight months into Herbert Hoover’s presidency. Most experts, including Hoover, thought the crash was part of a passing recession.  Hoover had worked trying to fix the economy. He founded government agencies:  encouraged labor harmony  supported local aid for public works, fostered cooperation between government and business in order to stabilize prices,  and struggled to balance the budget.  His work focused on indirect relief from individual states and the private sector, with emphasis on “supporting each state committee more effectively”  and volunteerism— “appealing for funds” from outside the government.

Hoover ……. And the GREAT DEPRESSION Continued …….. Hoover refused to involve the federal government in forcing fixed prices, controlling businesses, or manipulating the value of the currency, all of which he felt were steps towards SOCIALISM. He was inclined to give indirect aid to banks or local public works projects, but he refused to use federal money for direct aid to citizens, believing the dole would weaken public morale.

Hooverville's??? Shortly after the stock market crash in October 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, American unemployment and homelessness skyrocketed. With lodging houses overflowing, improvised shantytowns sprang up across the country. On vacant lots, public land and in empty alleys, unemployed people lived together huts and shacks from wood and scrap metal.

Causes of the Great Depression 1. The stock market crash of 1929 and collapse of stock prices 2. Federal Reserve’s failure to prevent widespread collapse of the nation’s banking system in the late 1920s and early 1930s, 3. leading to severe contraction in the nation’s supply of money in circulation 4. High protective tariffs that produced retaliatory tariffs in other countries, strangling world trade (Tariff Act of 1930, popularly called the Hawley-Smoot Act)

The Central Park Hooverville became particularly famous, standing as it did in the shadows of the stately apartment buildings on both sides of Central Park. It had vanished by the time work on the reservoir landfill resumed in April By 1940, the economy and employment levels had largely recovered, and Hooverville's were cleaned out and even burned by police.

Impact of the Great Depression: 1. Unemployment and homelessness 2. Collapse of the financial system (bank closings) 3. Decline in demand for goods 4. Political unrest (growing militancy of labor unions) 5. Farm foreclosures and migration

FDR and the New Deal

 This program changed the role of the government to a more active participant in solving problems.  Roosevelt rallied a frightened nation in which one in four workers was unemployed. (“We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.”)  Relief measures provided direct payment to people for immediate help (Works Progress Administration—WPA).  Recovery programs were designed to bring the nation out of the depression over time (Agricultural Adjustment Administration—AAA).  Reform measures corrected unsound banking and investment practices (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation—FDIC).  Social Security Act offered safeguards for workers. Although considered by politician's to be an “ENTITLEMENT Program”- if you have $ going into it every pay day, it should not be considered as such.

The legacy of the New Deal influenced the public’s belief in the responsibility of government to deliver public services, to intervene in the economy, and to act in ways that promote the general welfare.