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Life during the Depression. Dust Bowl, Public Works, & Bonus Army. The Dust Bowl. When farmers began plowing the Great Plains, their plows uprooted the wild grass that helped hold the soil’s moisture.
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Life during the Depression Dust Bowl, Public Works, & Bonus Army
The Dust Bowl • When farmers began plowing the Great Plains, their plows uprooted the wild grass that helped hold the soil’s moisture. • When the depression hit, crop prices fell and many of the Plains farmers had to leave their fields behind…uncultivated.
Origins of the Dust Bowl • Making matters worse, a drought struck the Plains and caused the soil to dry to dust. • The wheat fields from the Dakotas to Texas became one massive Dust Bowl. • The wind caused the sky to be blackened for hundreds of miles. • In the aftermath, farmers found both crops and livestock buried under the dust.
Dust Bowl • Dust filled the lungs of both animals and people who were caught outside during these wind storms. • Death by suffocation was extremely common. • Most farmers were unable to keep their lands without the income from the fields. If they were mortgaged, the banks repossessed.
Let’s Check your Understanding!!! • Drought and _________ brought about the conditions that caused the Dust Bowl. • Overgrazing at large cattle farms. • The near extinction of the buffalo • Famine • Poor farming practices
Hollywood • During the Great Depression, more than 60 million viewers went to the movies each week. • Comedies gave viewers a way to escape the reality of their current situation.
King Kong was first released in 1933. It was the first movie with special effects.
Soap Operas • Soap Operas gave listeners an opportunity to listen to others with illnesses and family conflict. • Millions of people listened to the radio daily.
Literature & Art • Writers and artists used the homeless and the unemployed as their subjects in pictures and articles. • Author John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath about a family who moved to CA after losing their farm during to the Dust Bowl.
Let’s Check for Understanding!!! • What subjects did artists, photographers, and writers emphasize during the 1930s?
Hoover’s Response • Hoover did not believe that it was the government’s responsibility to provide relief to individuals hurt by the depression. • Other countries hurt by the depression embraced a form of socialism. • Hoover believed that socialism was responsible for their financial decline. • He had even written a book called American Individualism that argued that individualism made America’s economic system the best in the world.
Behind Closed Doors • Although publicly Hoover declared that the economy was on its way to recovery, he was really concerned. • He met with leaders of banks, railroads, and other big businesses. • He even met with labor leaders and govt. officials. • Industrialists agreed to stop cutting wages and keep their factories open and workers agreed to accept existing wages and conditions. • The industrialists did not Keep Their Promise.
Production shuts down • Americans were reluctant to buy because production had been cut and workers were being laid off everyday. • The lack of spending caused production to come to a grinding halt. • The result was even more layoffs.
Public Works Projects • Hoover asked Congress for $420 million to start government-funded building projects in an effort to create jobs. • Although this provided some of the unemployed with jobs, it wasn’t enough to pull the country out of the depression.
To tax? or not to tax? • Hoover was against raising taxes to pay for public works projects. • He felt that if he raised taxes, people would have less money in their checks to spend. • On the other hand, If he tried to fund the projects without raising taxes, he would have to borrow money. • Hoover believed that borrowing money would increase the deficit and prolong the depression. • Meanwhile, Americans continued to blame Hoover and the Republicans for the rising unemployment. • When the elections rolled around, the Republicans lost the majority of their seats.
Trickle-down economics • Trickle- down theory- pump $ into the economy to the people at the top, and eventually the money will trickle down and benefit the people at the bottom. • This method proved ineffective for Hoover. • Money seldom trickled down to the people who were really in need of the assistance. • People began to request relief from the federal government.
Let’s Check for Understanding!!! • Hoover was slow to respond to the economic crisis because he opposed • All public works projects • Deficit spending • Investing in stocks • Private charities
No relief in sight • Hoover was adamantly opposed to providing direct federal aid to the needy. • He saw that as being to close to Socialism in England. • He also thought that it would ruin the unemployed’sdesire to work.
Working-Class Militancy • Members of the working-class (the poorest tier) suffered the worst during the depression. • Their frustrations soon gave way to protest. • Thousands of unemployed auto-workers protested in front of Henry Ford’s( creator of the Model-T car) factory to demand work. • They were met by Ford’s own private security force. • After the workers began throwing rocks at the security guards, they unleashed gunfire. • 4 demonstrators were killed. • The public was so incensed by the deaths that > 40,000 people attended the funeral.
Rise of Communism • Americans suffering from the depression began to embrace Communism. • The Communist Party was at its strongest in American history during the depression. • It had a following of 100,000+ Americans. • It appealed to people from every walk of life---workers, intellectuals, and college students. • Communists wanted to completely overthrow the current system--Capitalism. • They saw it as the only way to provide relief to those suffering.
Communists • Although members of the Communist Party were regularly attacked and generally viewed as enemies of America, they continued their protests in support of American workers. • They were also unafraid to fight against racism in the South.
“Scottsboro Boys” • The Communist Party was also the party that obtained a lawyer for a group of poor black men who were falsely accused of rape in Scottsboro, AL in 1931. • It would be 20 years before the last one was released from prison.
The Bonus Army • In 1924, Congress promised to pay WWI veterans $1 for everyday they had been ikn uniform, plus extra for time spent overseas. • When it was time to pay up, Congress decided to hand out promissory notes that the veterans could not cash in until 1945. • Veterans across the country began to organize in an effort to get what was rightly theirs.
The President Reacts • Although some in Congress agreed with the Bonus Army, Hoover did not. • He said that paying the bonuses would require the government to go into debt. • He refused to even meet with their representatives. • To add insult to injury, he labeled them as “Communists” and “bums”. • More than 20,000 Bonus Marchers convened in Washington determined to get Hoover to see things their way.
Attack on the Bonus Marchers • Hoover commanded General Douglas MacArthur to evict the Bonus Marchers from the city without going into their camp. • MacArthur and 500 army soldiers released tear gas grenades on the Bonus Marchers. • They then torched their camps. • The Bonus Marchers were forced to run away. • MacArthur was never disciplined for directly disobeying Hoover’s orders.
The End for Hoover • The attack on the Bonus Marchers was the last nail in the coffin for Hoover. • People saw him as unsympathetic and out of touch with the needs of most Americans.
