The Great Depression Aim: How did the underlying flaws of the 1920’s economy lead to the Great Depression?

Depression Causes Uneven distribution of the wealth Agricultural Problems Expansion of credit

Economy in 1929

The Stock Market Crashes Commercial banks fail Unemployment rises Hawley-Smoot Tariff- raised prices on foreign imports. The Depression goes global- The result of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.

Effects of the Great Depression On Farms Falling crop prices. Farmers lose their farms. Tenant Farmers- Farmers who worked for bigger landowners rather than for themselves. Drought in the Great Plains- In Cities - Production cutbacks in factories By 1933, 24.9 percent unemployment rate. Bread line- people lined up for handouts Development of Hoovervilles.- shantytowns of tents and shacks built. Minorities African American sharecroppers were thrown off their land. Americans urged repatriation of Mexican Americans.

The Dust Bowl Crops turned to dust=No food Homes Buried Fields blown away The Dust Bowl was the #1 weather crisis of the 20th century The Dust Bowl

Hoovervilles Referred to as “Hoovervilles” because of President Hoover’s lack of help during the depression.

Car for sale in New York

Families on the road, traveling west.

Leaving South Dakota for Oregon

Okies driving to California

Migrant families camped out

Cooking supper in a shanty, a temporary home

Farmers sometimes allowed migrant workers and families to camp while they were harvesting crops. This often led to “squatter camps” where people began living in thrown-together shacks. Squatter’s shack

18 year old mother at a migrant camp

A school for migrant worker’s kids

Christmas dinner for a migrant family

Breadlines became common, as people struggled to feed themselves and their families

Jobs were scarce as the unemployment levels soared

Migrant workers camp

Dorothea Lange’s photo, “Migrant Mother,” perhaps the most famous image from the Great Depression

In 1937, John Steinbeck published his novella “Of Mice and Men,” the tragic story of two migrant ranch workers, George and Lennie, during the Great Depression in California.