1. Hoover and The Depression ► Shantytowns ► Bread lines ► Dust Bowl ► Bonus Army

2. Signs of the Depression ► High rate of unemployment and poverty led to starvation ► The Depression saw the rise of soup kitchens and bread lines  Offered free or low cost food ► Regular homes were replaced with shanties  A large population of shanties was a shantytown (a.k.a. Hooverville)

3. Dust Bowl ► Drought spread throughout the Midwest in 1930 ► Overfarming had removed hard soil that kept the dust down ► People moved west  “oakies”  Became migrant workers

4. What was Hoover doing?? ► President Hoover believed that the Depressions were part of the natural economic cycle ► Saw gov’t as an assistant to business and labor ► Believed that people could succeed on their own ► Opposed federal welfare  Saw as degrading

5. More Hoover ► Hoover was cautious about the Depression ► Created the Federal Home Loan Bank Act & Reconstruction Finance Corp. to try to get economic benefits to trickle down ► By 1930 politics were shifting to Demos.

6. Bonus Army ► 10,000-20,000 WWI vets came to D.C. to support a bill that would give them “bonuses” that would make up for low compensation during the war (Pittman Bill)  About $500 ► Congress already approved the bonuses in 1924, but agreed to pay in 1945 ► People wanted/needed the $$ now!

7. Bonus Army cont. ► Hoover let them set up a shanty town within sight of the capital ► Hoover believed that the Bonus Army was filled with communists and criminals, not vets ► Pittman Bill dies ► Hoover ordered the Bonus Army disbanded

8. Bonus Army Before

9. Bonus Army ► 2,000 people didn’t leave ► Fearing violence, Hoover sent in the real army to break up the gathering ► Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Major Dwight Eisenhower were in charge ► Tear gas used ► Bayonets used to move people along  2 people shot -- 11month old killed  FDR believed this is what won him the election

10. Bonus Army After