1. The Great Depression

2. Knights Charge 3/25
What was the fear of the spread of communism in America called?
What did the US do in response to it?
How did women challenge social norms?
How did African Americans challenge racial inequality?
What was the Harlem Renaissance?

3. Learning Points
You will be able to identify some of the causes of the Great Depression
How did President Herbert Hoover and the US Government respond to the Great Depression

4. Causes of the Great Depression
Uneven distribution of wealth
Too much buying on credit
Buying on the margin

5. Uneven Distribution of Wealth
The rich had the majority of the money supply

6. Buying on Credit
Too many Americans relied on buying goods with money they did not have

7. Buying on Margin
Money was borrowed from stockbrokers to pay for stocks
Paid only a portion of a stock’s cost out of pocket
If stock values rose  buyer would sell & pay back amount owed & make a profit

8. Black Tuesday: The Market Crashes
October 29, 1929  Stock Market crashed
Stock prices continued to fall through November

11. Results of the Crash Fortunes were lost
People withdrew their savings from banks
Banks closed and failed
People lost their jobs
Some lost their homes

16. Hoovervilles

20. Hoover’s Response
Hoover believed that the Great Depression would end on its own
Viewed the economy would go through upswings and downswings naturally
Hands-off approach

21. President Hoover’s Response
Asked Congress to cut taxes
Had public works created  build dams, roads, public buildings
Signed Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act  put high tariffs on foreign goods (makes things worse)
Localism- problems could be fixed at state and local levels

23. The Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl – 1940  Great Plains experienced drought
Clouds of dust blew through towns & into homes
Thousands of farm animals died
Contributed to more economic problems

27. Dust Bowl continued… Crops were ruined
Farmers had no income & couldn’t repay loans
Farmers lost their land  as many as 3 million
The dust clouds reached as far as the east coast
John Steinbeck wrote about the Dust Bowl in his book The Grapes of Wrath