1. The Great Depression & New Deal, 1929-1941

2. Origins and Causes  Extreme wealth inequalities  Ballooning stock market  Over reliance on unprotected loans  Too much speculation & borrowing  Overproduction and uneven distribution capabilities  Stock Market crash was a symptom  Banks lacked money, people lost savings, debts were called in, no cash  Production stopped, workers fired, no $, consumption declined, no profits, more workers fired

3. President Hoover  Herbert Hoover  Progressive  War Reconstruction  Opposed direct federal aid  Self-help & volunteerism  Self-help cooperatives

4. “Hoover’s America”  Anti-tax views & opposition to gov’t support deepened depression  Texas legislature vetoed a bond measure for relief  Oklahoma governor William Murray called out the national guard to enforce segregation in OK City  Colorado Senator Ed Costigan wanted federal government to help states in relief efforts

5. Hoovervilles

6. Seattle, 1931

7. The Bonus Army/March  World War One veterans  Gov’t denied their pensions  Marched on Washington, 1932  Congregated around White House  Gen. Douglas MacArthur  Military evicted them from D.C.  Deep anger at gov’t  Deep class divisions  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqev dBZCbcQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqev dBZCbcQ

8. Election of 1932 Hoover v. FDR

9. Hoover  Believed that the key to recovery was confidence  Depression was a “ world-wide economic conditions beyond our control ”  Government and business officials tried to maintain public confidence

10. Voluntary action fails  Business promised to keep wages up but did not keep the promise  After a year of bad times people began to blame the depression on President Hoover

11. Government actions  Agricultural Marketing Act- designed to stabilize prices of crops Program was a failure- lost more than $150 million To create jobs they spent money on building roads, parks, and dams.  Hoover Dam

12. Government actions  Hawley-Smoot tariff- Highest import tax, Europeans raised their taxes too, caused a slowdown of trade  Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) - lent money to banks and large industries Banks continued to fail People felt that the government was only helping the rich Hoover ’ s unpopularity grows

13.  Hoover thinks relief should come from state and local governments People thought he was cold hearted  Blamed him for their problems  1932- Finally lent money to state and local governments for unemployment but it was too little to late  Bonus Army demanded pension money for 1945 marched in Washington Hoover called in the Army Army used force to make marchers leave Many people were injured

14. ActionGoal Success or Failure/Why? Organized White House conference of business leaders to presuade business leaders voluntarily to maintain workers wages FAIL- businesses cut workers pay Signed the Hawley- Smoot tarriff bill protect domestic industries from imports FAIL- Europe raised their own tariffs bringing slow down in international trade

15. set up Reconstruction Finance Corporation to help banks so they could extend loans FAIL- people thought government was only helping the banks not people Insisted that state and local governments handle relief programs to protect self- respect & avoid creating a large bureaucracy FAIL- refusal to provide direct aid. Created a negative public reaction

16. FDR- Franklin Delano Roosevelt  Promised people a new deal and that “ happy days were here ”  Democrat  Harvard graduate  On New York State Senate twice  Assistant secretary of Navy under President Wilson  Polio in 1920 and never walked again  Ready to experiment with government roles  Brought optimism to the table  Worked with depression relief as a governor of New York

17. FDR- Franklin Delano Roosevelt  Wife Eleanor was niece of Theodore Roosevelt Experienced political worker and social reformer Worked for several causes  Public housing legislation  State government reform  Birth control  Better conditions for working women

18. Election of 1932  “ This campaign is more than a contest between two men… it is a contest between two philosophies of government ” Hoover 1932 Battle between how much the government should and should not be involved in fixing people ’ s problems  Hoover argued that government would be to powerful

19. Election of 1932  FDR won with a margin of 7 million votes People didn ’ t always support FDR because of his ideas, they opposed Hoover for being too passive  1933- FDR took office

20. Roosevelt and the New Deal  Frederick Delano Roosevelt (FDR)  Programs to address the Depression  “Relief, Recovery, Reform”  Debt spending  Consume our way out of the depression  Role of government

21. Immediate Responses, 1933  Banking Holiday Closed Banks for 10 days  Federal Emergency Relief Act Federal funds for relief  National Industrial Recovery Act Fair work and competition codes Administration to enforce codes Guaranteed labor’s right to organize

22. New Deal Programs  Civilian Conservation Corps  Soil Conservation Service  Soil Erosion  Planting trees  Irrigation and range management  http://www.youtube.com /watch?v=qolPqXNGW3I http://www.youtube.com /watch?v=qolPqXNGW3I

23. Tennessee Valley Authority Flood control, Electricity, Irrigation, work

24. Works Progress Administration WPA  Biggest agency  1935 employed 8 million and $2 billion fund Bridges, reservoirs, irrigation, sewage, schools, playgrounds, education, training  Work Programs paid minimum wages, pulled them off charity and soup lines  “We Work Again” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk0Sp TOi9Aw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk0Sp TOi9Aw

25. 1935 Social Security Act  Safety net for all Americans  Percentage of paycheck  Based on shorter life-span  Intended to supplement (not replace) income  Less inclined to “retire”

26. Financial System  Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Insured individual bank deposits  Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulated trading practices in stocks and bonds

27. Problems with New Deal  Relief based on race: Tucson scaled payments based on race  Favored large industries and business  Hurt some small farmers  Local agencies administered relief and ran programs

28. Propaganda/Education  Government Promotional Film  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq5UiGdje8U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq5UiGdje8U

29. Water and the West  Bureau of Reclamation  Hoover Dam Water for L.A., Imperial Valley, Phoenix, and power for region  Central Valley Project harnessed the Sacramento River Water storage, irrigation, hydro-electricity Federal-corporate alliance $2.5 billion by 1935

30. Hoover Dam

31. Grand Coulee Dam  Columbia River, 1941  Largest concrete structure in the world  Created a 150 mile lake  Too much power  Bonneville Power Administration  Powered 70% of Northwest

33. The Dust Bowl  Economic and environmental disaster  Overproduction, monocrops  Plowed up grasses for farms to meet the needs of a booming wheat market  Soil exhaustion, soil erosion  Drought and winds  1935: Blew winds from CO and NE, blackened the sky across the plains, into the East and Atlantic Ocean

34. Responses  Killed millions of animals, burned millions of tons of food  Taylor Grazing Act Federal control of grazing

35. Migrants: Okies  Poor whites and sharecroppers  Evicted from OK, TX, MI, ARK  Going to CAL  L.A. Police Chief “bum blockade”

36. Mexican and Okie Farmworkers

37. Mexican Repatriation  Mexican & Mexican Americans sent to Mexico  Nearly 1 million  L.A. County deported 12,000  Colorado deported 20,000

38. The Indian New Deal  John Collier  Progressive  Pueblos  Preserve cultures

39. The Indian New Deal  Multi-faceted legislation Education Politics Religion Land Culture Language

40. Indian Reorganization Act  IRA, 1934 Economic & political assistance Business Councils Tribal Constitutions BIA, Interior Over half rejected it

41. Women  Eleanor Roosevelt  Work & aid  Patriotic home economics conserve, recycle, help America “as a woman”

42. African Americans  Jobs in gov’t  Sharecropping  100,000 blacks evicted by AAA  No loans from FHA  Mary McCloud Bethune  http://www.youtube.c om/watch?v=Gk0SpT Oi9Aw http://www.youtube.c om/watch?v=Gk0SpT Oi9Aw

43. “Share the Wealth”  Huey Long  Populist Gov. in LA  Use of radio and sensational claims  Rhetoric of poverty / class tensions  Senator  Share the Wealth  Social Justice  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdzAbxsjPRA&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdzAbxsjPRA&NR=1

44. Public Art and Culture  Federal Writers Project  Theater  Oral histories of slavery, folk lore, Indian stories, Mexican Revolution, cowboys, frontier life, etc  National cultural resources and heritage  Federal Arts Program http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKsm3Sm BBKU&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKsm3Sm BBKU&feature=related

45. Federal Theatre Project

46. Writer’s & Theater Project

47. WPA Posters

48. Travel through the West

49. New Deal Work Mural

50. End of the Depression  Federal spending on an unprecedented level failed to stop it  The largest entrance of the federal government into the American economy  Made the federal government into a “broker state” between labor and capital  Social programs and “safety net”  Brought fed gov’t into the lives of nearly all Westerners  WWII ended the Depression

51. Comparisons with the Present?  Wealth inequalities  Deregulation  Bad Home mortgages  Massive individual debt  Inflated costs & uncontrolled speculative investments in commodities  Collapse of investment-debt-loan system  A Vicious Cycle: Retraction of loans, increase in job losses, fall in investments, layoffs, decline in consumption, reduced production, layoffs, no consumption…