The Great Depression

1. The Great Depression • The Crash of 1929 • Financial Panic • Causes of the Great Depression • Consequences of the Crash • The New Deal • Historiographic Debates • Stages • Election of 1936 • New Deal Successes • Banking • TVA and CCC • Farmers • Labor • Backlash • Critics: Huey Long and Father Coughlin • Legislation and anti-union violence • Court Packing case • Depression Culture • Works Progress Administration • Popular Front

2. KKK Membership 1920 4,000,000 1924 6,000,000 1930 30,000 1980 5,000 2008 6,000

3. The Crash > What Caused the Great Depression? • Financial panic • Stock market crash • Land speculation in Florida and Southern California • Bank failures • Mortgage foreclosures • Sales of new goods stagnated after 1926 • Unequal distribution of income reduced purchasing power • Depression in farming • Europe’s demand for US goods declines • Europe defaults on debt payment • Germany stops paying France and Britain • France and Britain stop paying US • Unavoidable economic cycles or could have been avoided if speculation was curbed and consumption encouraged?

4. The Crash > Economy Compared to Television, 1929

5. The Crash > “It’s so nice to have Daddy home all the time now,” Life, 1930

6. The Crash > “We can do it!” 1931

7. The Crash > Hooverville, 1933

8. The Crash > Farmers displaced by the Dust Bowl

9. The Crash > Deportation of Mexicans, 1931

10. The Crash > Jobs Listed by Race, 1939

11. New Deal > Banking Crisis Advertisement, 1931

12. The Crash > “Fundamentally, the ship was sound,” New Yorker, 1932

13. The Crash > Popcorn

14. New Deal > Historiographic Debates • 1952, Herbert Hoover • New Deal failed because it “attempted to collectivize the American system of life.” • 1940s-1960s, “liberal consensus” historians • New Deal was a “pragmatic” revolution that expanded the role of the federal government in American life. • mid-1960s, “New Left” historians • New Deal was fundamentally conservative, it could but failed to redistribute power in American society; it protected American capitalism. • 1970s-2000s, contemporary historians • New Deal could not have done more than it did, because of conservative Congress, the lack of adequate government bureaucracy, and localist and antistatist political culture.

15. New Deal > Stages • 1932 - FDR elected • First New Deal (“the hundred days”) • 1934 - Strike wave • 1934 - Leftist Democrats win the majority in congressional elections • Second New Deal (“the second hundred days”) • 1935 - Supreme Court unanimously declares NRA unconstitutional • 1936 - FDR reelected in a landslide • 1937 - Court-packing • FDR proposes but fails to implement unpopular Supreme Court reform • 1938 - Republicans and conservative Democrats regain seats in the House • As a reform movement, New Deal is over

16. New Deal > Private FDR Photograph, 1930s

17. New Deal > Public FDR Photographs, 1930s

18. New Deal > FDR Giving a Fireside Chat

19. New Deal > FDR’s Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933 I am certain that on this day my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

20. New Deal > Song from Thanks a Million, 1935 They started up the NRA to keep the big bad wolf away Then FDR began to be a headache to the GOP Now that codes are everywhere we’ve got initials in our hair The farmer’s IOU is O.K. since Congress formed the AAA The CCC chops down a tree and sells it pronto FOB … The RFC and NHA led millions to the AAA The AAA has crops it cuts and all of us are going nuts! --- NRA - National Recovery Administration AAA - Agricultural Adjustment Administration CCC - Civilian Conservation Corps RFC - Reconstruction Finance Corporation NHA - National Housing Authority FDR - Franklin Delano Roosevelt GOP - Grand Old Party FOB - Freight on Board

21. New Deal > Works Progress Administration poster

22. New Deal > TVA: Big Ridge Dam, TN

23. New Deal > CCC Worker Photograph, 1930

24. New Deal > NRA’s Blue Eagle Photograph, 1934

25. New Deal > One Hundred Days Cartoon, Lynn Item, 1933

26. New Deal > One Hundred Days Cartoon, Houston Post, 1933

27. New Deal > Literary Digest and Gallup polls on 1936 election Literary Digest Final Poll Landon 57% Roosevelt 43 States for Landon 32 States for FDR 16 A.I.P.O. (Gallup) Final Poll Roosevelt 55.7% Landon 44.3 States for FDR 40 States for Landon 6 On the line 2 Election Results Roosevelt 61% Landon 49% States for FDR 46 States for Landon 2 January 1936 Gallup Poll By Income Roosevelt Landon Upper third 41% 59% Lower third 70 30 Reliefers 82 18 October 1936 Gallup Poll Farmers Roosevelt 52.6% Landon 42.1% Women Roosevelt 51.4% Landon 44.8% Young People (21–24 Years) Roosevelt 57.4% Landon 38.4% Reliefers Roosevelt 78.8% Landon 14.0%

28. New Deal > Percentage vote for Roosevelt in black districts, 1932 and 1936

29. Farmers > Farm Holiday, 1932 and Archibald Willard, The Spirit of ‘76, 1876

30. Farmers > Dust Storm Approaching Startford, Texas, 1930s

31. Farmers > Map of Erosion and Dust on the Plains

32. Farmers > Traveling from South Texas to the Arkansas Delta, 1936

33. Farmers > Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, March 1936

34. Farmers > Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother series, March 1936

35. Farmers > Arthur Rothstein, Steer Skull, Pennington County, South Dakota 1936

36. Farmers > Arthur Rothstein, the same skull on dry sun-baked earth

37. Farmers > Arthur Rothstein, the same skull, cows grazing in the background

38. Labor > Wagner Act, 1935: United Automobile Workers poster addressing Ford workers

39. Labor > Social Security Poster, 1936

40. Labor > AFL and CIO • AFL • skilled workers only • by craft • anti-immigrant • native-born white male workers only • CIO • all workers, including semi-skilled (majority) • by industry • actively recruited immigrants, women, and nonwhites

41. Labor > A CIO poster quoting FDR

42. Labor > The rise in union membership

43. Labor > Compare to 2008

44. Labor > Sit-down strike in Flint, MI

45. Labor > UAW organizers Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen pose for press photographers, River Rouge Plant, May 26, 1937

46. Labor > They were approached by Ford Service Department men

47. Labor > Ford men attacked

48. Labor > Reuther and Frankensteen immediately after the incident

49. Labor > Women’s sit-down strike in a Goody Nut Shop, 1937

50. Labor > Sit-down strike cartoon, New York World-Telegram, March 1937