1. Life During the Great Depression
Chapter 9 Section 2
Life During the Great Depression

2. Americans Face Hardships
Breadlines
“Hoovervilles”
Hobos
Tenant farmers
Okies
Dust Bowl

3. Struggling to get by…
Americans faced hardships as the economy continued to slow down in the early s…
The Great Depression touched every American because every American experienced or knew someone who experienced the hardships and loss caused by the economic catastrophe.
If you did not lose your job, most workers had their wages cut from 10 to 30%.
Bread Lines: Line of people waiting for food handouts from charities or public agencies.
Wives started trying to find work washing or ironing clothes.
Water replaced milk. Meat disappeared. Children ate smaller meals.
Unemployed turned to unemployable. Whole families descended into hunger and homelessness.

4. Americans Face Hardships
The jobless often went hungry.
When possible they stood in BREADLINES for free food or lined up outside SOUP KITCHENS set up by private groups and churches.

5. HOOVERVILLES
Hoovervilles": Makeshift shantytowns of tents and shacks built on public land or vacant lots.
"Hoover Flags": Empty pocket pants turned inside out, a sign of poverty.

6. Poverty Devastates Rural America
Farmers were often hit the hardest during the Great Depression…
Crop prices fell even further, and new debts were added to old ones.
The income farmers generated was not enough to allow them to continue farming.
Between 1930 and 1934, nearly 1 million farmers failed to pay their mortgages and lost their farms.
Many were forced to become sharecroppers or Tenant Farmers: Working for bigger landowners rather than for themselves.

7. Sharecroppers/Tenant Farmers

8. DUST BOWL
Farmers on the Great Plains suffered years of drought and dust…many were forced to migrate WEST
By 1932, the combination of drought, loose topsoil, and high winds resulted in disaster on the Great Plains = THE DUST BOWL
These gigantic clouds of dust and dirt could rise from ground level to a height of 8,000 feet.
The dust storms moved as fast as 100 miles per hour and blotted out the sun, plunging daylight into darkness.
Dust Bowl: Most of the dust storms started in the southern Great Plains, especially the high plains regions of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Colorado.

9. Dust Bowl

10. Migrant Farmers
Okies: Dust Bowl refugees. "Okie" held a negative connotation, as these refugees were looking and desperate for work. Many moved West...
Rural states lost population while states with large cities gained population.
JOAD family in the Grapes of Wrath

11. Okies

12. Farm Foreclosures

13. The Depression Worsens
The Depression Attacks Family Life
The loss of job meant a reduction in status. Men felt like they were betraying their families. (Some Stayed/Some Left)
Birthrates plummeted to the lowest marks in American history—a sure sign of family distress.
Mother and fathers constantly trying to find work or working to make money, family discipline declined. (Children = No School)

14. Americans Face Hard Times

15. Migrant Families

16. Lesson 3 - Hoover’s Response fails
Chapter 9
Lesson 3 - Hoover’s Response fails

17. Hoover’s Response to the Depression
Cautious Response to Depression Fails
Hoover favored a hands off policy by the federal government
less government intervention was ideal
Normal business cycle – would fix itself
October 25,1929 – “the fundamental business of the country…is on a sound and prosperous basis”
Hoover hoped to avoid back runs and more layoffs by downplaying public fear
He urged consumers and business leaders to make rational decisions
“Rugged Individualism”
Hoover believed that Americans possessed a unique individualism that was a byproduct of laissez faire politics
Hoover therefore believed that the U.S. government should not step in to help individuals

18. Hoover’s Response to the Depression
Hoover’s Policies were based on his idea of “RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM”
Hoover asked businesses and industrial leaders to keep employment, wages, and prices at current levels
VOLUNTEERISM
Hoover called for the government to:
Reduce taxes
Lower interest rates
Create public works programs
Localism: Policy whereby problems could best be solved at local and state levels
Local governments did not have the financial or human resources to combat the economic crisis

19. Hoover Adopts more Activist policies
RECONSTRUCTION FINANCE CORPORATION
RFC created in 1932
Gave more than $1 billion of government loans to railroads and large businesses
Trickle-Down Economics
Money poured into the top of the economic pyramid will trickle down to the base – tax cuts; business loans; etc…
The RFC lent out billions, but all too often bankers did not increase their loans (meant to grow economy, but did not…)
Businesses often did not use the loans they received to hire more workers

20. Boulder Dam
Workers broke ground on the Boulder Dam (later renamed Hoover Dam) in 1930.
Large public works project – meant to employ workers, as well as supply hydro- electric power to the American Southwest

21. Hoover Dam

22. Americans Protest Hoover’s Failures
Some Americans thought the answer to the country’s problems was the rejection of capitalism and the acceptance of socialism and communism
Regardless, more and more Americans looked to the government for help

23. Bonus Army
Bonus Army – group of WW1 veterans who marched on Washington, DC, in 1932 to demand early payment of a bonus promised by Congress
Congress agreed and passed a bill to provide for early payment of the bonuses (Payment Due 1945)
Hoover vetoed the Bill
Bonus Army set up camps and occupied empty government buildings
Riot broke out when police tried to evict Bonus Army
Hoover sent troops to put down riot
Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, and George Patton led to the troops.
Troops tear-gassed and brandished their sabers in a show of force
**Enraged many Americans

24. Bonus Army

25. New Leadership
With high unemployment (25%), failed government policies, and the Bonus Army debacle, the US public wanted new leadership
Franklin Delano Roosevelt elected 1932…