1. The Great Depression And The New Deal “Brother, Can you Spare a Dime ?”

2. Depression: a severe and long-term downturn in the economy, generally with high unemployment The Great Depression 1929-1940

3. 1.Trade imbalances from tariffs / International debt 2.Economy out of balance 3.Poor distribution of purchasing power 4.Farmers ~ Overproduction / Debt / Dust Bowl 5.Bank Failures Causes of the Great Depression

4. Because of WW I, Europe needBecause of WW I, Europe need money to pay war debts Trade Imbalances/International Debt

5. Europe need to sell goods to the US in order to make money Europe need to sell goods to the US in order to make money Congress passed a tariff which placed high taxes on goods from EuropeCongress passed a tariff which placed high taxes on goods from EuropeResult Taxing imports from Europe slowed trade & business and created trade imbalances.

6. Only a few industries carried the economy Automobiles Housing construction Difficulty moving to peace-time economy Industries overproduce products Older industries, basic to the fundamental well- being of the economy were barely profitable Textiles Steel Railroads Unbalanced Economy ~ Industrial Weakness

7. Uneven Income Distribution During the 1920s, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer 70% of families earned less than $2,500 / year 0.1% of the population earned more than $100,000 / year

8. Americans of the 1920s bought what they wanted instead of saving. (installment plan) Americans could not afford the products that company’s produced Businesses allowed customers to buy on credit Consumers accrued large amounts of debt and cut back on spending Economy ultimately faltered when consumers could not meet credit obligations $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Living on Credit

9. The Great Depression began in 1929 when, in a period of ten weeks, stocks on the New York Stock Exchange lost 50 percent of their value. As stocks continued to fall during the early 1930s, businesses failed, and unemployment rose dramatically

10. On October 29, 1929, the day known as Black Tuesday, as stock value sank to a new low. Businesses and banks shut down for lack of customers and money, and the Great Depression began.

11. Farmers and Overproduction American farmers supported the US and international communities during WW I To fill the demand for food, farmers bought more land & equipment….on credit & loans Overproduction of crops cause low prices and farmer’s lose money and can’t pay debt or loans

12. The farmers plowed millions of acres of grassland, only to have the rains stop in the summer of 1931. The catastrophic eight-year drought that followed led observers to rename the region "The Dust Bowl."

13. The Dust Bowl 1933 - 1936 1.Severe drought in the Mid-west that made farming impossible. 2.Poor farming techniques contributed to the Dust Bowl 3.Dust storms over ran the “Bread Basket” and carried millions of tons of dust to the East Coast 4.Forced farm families to pack up and move West to become migrant farm workers

14. Hardest hit areas: Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado

15. Striking in the heart of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl blasted the hope and hard work of people in the Great Plains.

16. The Dust Bowl was given nicknames such as "Black Blizard" and "Black Roller" because visibility was reduced to a few feet.

17. 1935 photo of a cloud of topsoil picked up by the winds and moving down the road in Oklahoma

18. Millions of acres of farmland became useless, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes.

19. Hundreds of thousands of families from the Dust Bowl (often known as the "Okies," since so many came from Oklahoma) traveled to California and other states.

20. Teenagers and The Depression At the height of the Great Depression, more than a quarter million teenagers were living on the road in America, many criss- crossing the country by illegally hopping freight trains.

21. The Migrant Mother Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother” became a symbol of the Great Depression and drew attention to the plight of the migrant workers

22. “Hard Times”

23. By 1932, one of every four workers was unemployed.

24. Banks failed and life savings were lost, leaving many Americans destitute.

25. The poor congregated in cardboard shacks in so- called Hoovervilles on the edges of cities across the nation

26. Hundreds of thousands of the unemployed roamed the country on foot and in boxcars in futile search of jobs.

27. Financial Collapse Some banks had made speculative investments in the stock market and were hurt by the crash of 1929. Others failed when depositors, fearing that their bank would go bankrupt, rushed to withdraw their savings Because the government did not protect or insure bank accounts, millions of Americans could not recoup their losses….they lost their life savings. By 1933, 11,000 banks in the US failed.

28. Unemployment During the Depression After the stock market crash of 1929, unemployment in the United States soared, reaching nearly 25 percent in 1932. It remained high until World War II brought an economic recovery.

29. A jobless man sells apples on the streets of New York City in 1932. More than 15 million people, nearly one quarter of the United States work force, were unemployed by 1932.

30. “Soup kitchens” helped the starving and folks just “down on their luck”

31. Global Effects of the Depression World’s nations had become interdependent When the American economy collapsed, so too did the European economy To keep American dollars in America, the US government raised taxes and placed tariffs on European goods. World trade dropped Unemployment rates around the world skyrocketed Banks in Europe and Asia failed at alarming rates Leads to the rise of dictatorships in Europe.