1. The History Behind Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men
California Standard 3.12

2. The 1930s
Depression
- an economy with high unemployment, falling income, failing business, decline in production and sales.
The Great Depression
Misconception:
- Stock market crash was the cause of the Great Depression.

3. Leading Causes Heavy Real estate losses in Florida Mass Consumption:
Living above means
Uneven Distribution of Wealth
Uninsured banks
Stock Market Crash
Farming Depression ( )
Cheap land
(Banks allowed buyers to put 25%
down on an acre that cost $15.00)
Over production on wheat (five million acres)
The Dust Bowl

4. Rapid Growth in the Stock Market
To attract investors brokers sold stocks on margin -- the investor paid only part of the selling price in cash and borrowed the rest on margin from the stock broker.
Brokers borrowed money from the banks to cover the margin.

5. Amount Broker Must Borrow
Complete the table below. Now, ask yourself, why would a broker want to sell stock on margin? Is this risky?
Stock
Investor’s
initial cost
Amount Broker Must Borrow
Investor 1
10 Shares
$7.50
Investor 2
50 Shares
$212.50
Investor 3
100 Shares
$75.00
$42.50
$37.50
$425.00
Shares are being sold at $5.00 each. Initially, the investor owes 15%.

6. October 1929 “Black Tuesday”
Extra! Extra! Read
all about it! Stock
Market Crashed!
Sad days ahead!
October 1929
“Black Tuesday”
Confidence in stock market failed
Investors began selling stocks
Margin calls- Banks wanted their money from brokers, and brokers wanted their money from investors.
March 1928 – Stock prices soared and the number of shares traded rose sharply
Stock prices were 400 percent higher
Investors became cautious
Fewer buyers drove prices down

7. Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl itself was restricted to a 97-million-acre piece of high, level land in the southern portion of the Great Plains: Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

8. The "Drouth"
From the annual rainfall didn’t exceed 12 inches
Low wheat prices and yields drove farmers from their lands
Dust clouds lifted and settled over millions of acres
Farmers and farmhands moved into California as migrant workers
Seventy severe dust storms recorded in 1933

9. Dust Was Everywhere Atlantic Monthly, 1930s
“Dust in the beds and in the flour bin, on dishes and walls and windows, in hair, eyes, teeth, and throats…”
People in Cimarron County remember hanging wet blankets across their windows and laying wet cloths over their faces when they went to sleep.
Ceilings collapsed under the weight of the accumulated dust mounds.

10. Migrant Workers
Migration - movement of people from place to place for permanent settlement
Drought in the plains forced owners off farms
The Grapes of Wrath depicts this lifestyle

11. "Oakies" Migrant farm workers Homeless/farmless due to drought and
“Dust Bowl”
Poor mid-western
farmers despised
and abused in California

12. Effects of the Great Depression
Factories and Mills closed
Manufacturing cut in half
Unemployment rose from 3.2 % to 24.9%
Banks ran out of money
“The Banking Crisis” F.D.R.
Mortgages foreclosed
Homelessness; poverty
“Riches to Rags”
For
Sale

13. Living Conditions Malnutrition Doubt
Most severe for men, women’s jobs actually rose
Children more self-reliant
Whites took-over jobs held by minorities

14. The Government Responds
Hoover: self-reliance, restore confidence, grew unpopular as conditions worsened
Roosevelt elected in 1932
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Fireside chats (Full Transcripts)
New Deal

15. End of Depression 1939 - unemployment still 15%
Outbreak of WWII - expansion of national defense, stimulating jobs and growth
Federal Government expanded its role in social and economic areas
Democratic Party - majority of America’s support for next half of century