1. The Great Depression

2. Background First event: The Crash of 1929
Prior to the crash: bull market
Afterward: bear market
Investors lost more money at the end of ($30 billion) than the United States had spent to fight World War I

3. The Banking Crisis
Failure of the stock market led people to question whether or not their money was safe in banks
Bank runs. Everywhere.
By 1933, one in every five banks that had been in business in 1930 had gone out of business

4. More Economic Problems
Overproduction
Underconsumption
Widening wealth gap
Increasing personal debt
Agricultural price decline
Rising unemployment: 3% in 1929; 25% in 1933

6. As If That Wasn’t Bad Enough
The Dust Bowl is a thing
Roughly 100 million acres of what had been the most fertile land in America turns to desert
Millions of farmers lose their land… and livelihood
Many head for California

7. The Dust Bowl in Video

8. More Dust Bowl Pictures

9. The Grapes of Wrath Written in 1939 by John Steinbeck
Story of the Joad family, who lose their land in Oklahoma and head west for California
Many references to the Bible
Highly controversial: painted capitalism as greedy

10. The Human Impact
People without jobs couldn’t earn money to buy food, etc.
Lack of employment was also psychologically damaging, especially for men
Too proud to accept help
Many people “hustled” however they could

11. Hoover Ignores the Problem
President Hoover did not believe it was the job of the government to fix the economy
Depended on private charity to fix things
Al Capone opened a soup kitchen in Chicago
Some local and state governments tried to help, but it wasn’t much

12. Summary The Crash of 1929 was the beginning of the Great Depression
Numerous bank runs, underconsumption, and rising unemployment (up to 25%) hurt the economy severely
The Dust Bowl affected millions of people and wiped out 100 million acres of farmland, inspiring John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
Despite the scale of suffering, President Hoover refused to commit federal government money to help alleviate the suffering, relying instead on private charity

13. Causes of the Great Depression