1. The Great Depression What it was, what caused it and who was involved

2. Major Causes: Unequal distribution of wealth and credit based society Supply and demand of goods became unstable War debt Wall Street Crash of 1929 The Dust Bowl

3. The 1920s New or newly accessible products Refrigerators, radios, phonographs, affordable cars, ready- to-wear clothes, packaged foods, washing machines Big arts movement (The Harlem Renaissance) Cultural changes (women could vote, the Great Migration) Prohibition (1919-1934)

4. Unequal Distribution of Wealth World War I ended in 1918 Americans entered a new era of social change and rampant consumerism America became able to mass-produce products While the rich got much richer, the poor remained poor

5. Credit and Poverty Buying things on credit became common place in the United States. For the first time families who could not afford the new luxuries could still buy them. Poor Americans were forced to use credit or go without because their wages remained stagnant

6. Supply and Demand America uses new technologies to mass-produce goods. Farmers take advantage of fertile years to bring in abundant crops, but they ruined the land in the process. Meanwhile, poorer Americans are finding it hard to buy these goods and food. The U.S. had previously been able to export some of these goods to Europe but…

7. War Debt Due to the aftermath of World War I, Europe can not afford to buy American goods This is compounded by new higher taxes that the U.S. places on imports and exports.

8. Farming America, unable to sell their crops to Europe decide to stockpile them instead. This causes too much supply and not enough demand. The price of crops lower significantly Farmers who were poor to begin with are now even poorer

9. Black Tuesday October 29 th 1929 www.time.com

10. The Stock Market Crash Remember how everyone was buying things on credit? The Stock Market crashes in 1929 which eventually causes banks to fail People can no longer afford to pay their rent or keep any of the luxuries they bought on credit The CrashThe Crash http://youtu.be/nyAZGqFtVjw?t=1m15shttp://youtu.be/nyAZGqFtVjw?t=1m15s

11. The Dust Bowl Farming isnt as simple as planting a seed and waiting for it to grow. For land to continue to be productive it needs periods of rest to lie fallow and recover from the loss of minerals The Great Plains were so fertile partially because they had gone untouched for years and the strong roots of the prairie grasses held it in place Over farming makes the topsoil weak and dry. A drought and ensuing windstorms causes the dusty topsoil to blow away, leaving the lands unusable for farming

12. The Dust Bowl the Dust Bowl http://youtu.be/MYOmjQO_UMw

13. Hoovervilles http://youtu.be/hbEVeKIghCk

14. Sources http://www.loc.gov/index.html http://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/Dawes http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&p sid=3396 http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsan dactivities/presentations/timeline/depwwii/depress/ http://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties