1. The Great Depression

2. The Stock Market Crash of 1929

3. The Stock Market Crash of 1929
Many Americans become wealthy in the 1920s, but even more are not earning a decent living…
Many businesses suffer, especially agriculture
Demand for crops falls after WWI.
What does this do to the price of crops and the farmers profit?
Consumers have less money to spend which means what?

4. The Great Depression Hits the United States

5. October 29, 1929 September 1929: Prices peak and then decline
Many sell stocks and pull out
People and corporations alike frantically try to sell stocks before prices plunge lower
Investors lose $30 Billion
Signals the beginning of the Great Depression

6. The Great Depression Economy in severe decline CAUSES
Millions out of work
Lasted from
CAUSES
Old and decaying industrial base
Crisis in the farm sector
The availability of easy credit
Unequal distribution of income

7. Financial Collapse Americans panic Worldwide Phenomenon
Withdraw money and force banks to close
1929: 659 Banks close
1933: 6,000 banks have closed (1/4 of the nation’s total)
85,000 businesses go bankrupt
1 out of 4 workers is unemployed
Worldwide Phenomenon
How did America’s Great Depression affect Europe?
Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act
World trade falls more than 40%

9. Depression Devastates People’s Lives in the Cities
Can’t afford rent
Live on streets
Sleep in parks/sewer pipes
Wrap themselves in “Hoover” blankets
Live in “Hoovervilles”
Wave “Hoover flags”

10. And in the country… One advantage over city life…
Between 1929 and 1932: 400,000 farmers lose their land to foreclosures
The Dust Bowl
Drought begins in early 1930s
Farmers had exhausted the land through overproduction of crops in the 1930s
No grass or trees left to hold the soil down in the wind
Caused huge dust storms

11. “Many days this spring the air is just full of dirt coming, literally, for hundreds of miles. It sifts into everything. After we wash the dishes and put them away, so much dust sifts into the cupboards that we must wash them again before the next meal…Newspapers say the deaths of many babies and old people are attributed to breathing in so much dirt.”
- Ann Marie Low

12. Homework for tonight… Read Section 11-5 and complete worksheet
TEST THURSDAY!