: Class: U.S. History 2 Date:. Mr. Wallace The Great Depression Directions: After reading about the Great Depression, answer the questions that follow. In the summer of 1929, people in the United States began to spend less. Thus, more products were building up in storage for manufacturers and stores. Debts began to increase. Stock market prices began to climb. A stock is a share or piece of a company which ordinary citizens can buy. They may or may not receive earnings on that stock depending on the business trends. On October 4, 1929, stock owners began selling their stocks in great quantities. The stock market was said to have collapsed. The day was called 'Black Thursday. On 'Black Tuesday', 5 days afterwards, millions more stocks were sold. Millions of shares couldn't be sold and had no value anymore. Many people who had put money into these stocks lost everything. Factories slowed down because people didn't have money to buy products. Fewer workers were needed, so many people became unemployed. Wages for the working people went down. Many people lost their houses because they had no money to pay their mortgages. These conditions spread around the world. The period from 1929-1939 was known as the Great Depression. A depression is a time of a great downturn in business profits. By 1931, 6 million people were out of work. Many had to try to get free food by standing in lines at various soup kitchens provided by those who could help. Businesses collapsed. Farmers couldn't sell their crops and left them in the fields because they couldn't afford to harvest them. Beginning in 1930, people started to withdraw all their savings from their bank accounts because they were afraid the banks would fail and did this for 3 more years. Many banks went out of business. President Herbert Hoover didn't think that the federal government should get involved in trying to solve the situation. However, in the fall of 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President. By inauguration day in March, all banks had been told to close for 4 days (a 'bank holiday'). New banking laws would be passed and only the strong banks would reopen. President Roosevelt spoke regularly on the radio to encourage the people of the United States. These talks were called 'fireside chats.' During his first 100 days in office, the President passed laws to try to get business going again and to help farmers with their crops. He created the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, to protect the money people put into banks in the future. He also set up the SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, to prevent a serious stock market crash from happening again. President Roosevelt put into place a program called the New Deal. Included in this program was the TVA, Tennessee Valley Authority, which involved building dams and providing water for the Tennessee Valley. The WPA, the Works Progress Administration, hired thousands of men to work on projects around the country. Beginning in 1933, the economy began to improve and did so for three years. In 1937, another serious downturn occurred and wiped away much of the progress which had been made. Hardships throughout Europe made it easier for Adolph Hitler to rise to power in Germany. In 1939, Hitler's troops began to invade neighboring countries. The United States then began manufacturing military supplies and equipment. Many more jobs were now available. The United States wanted to support its friends Germany and France. They had been invaded by Hitler's forces. After the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941, production and manufacturing began to increase and unemployment went down to what it was before the Great Depression.
: Class: U.S. History 2 Date:. Mr. Wallace The Great Depression Directions: After reading about the Great Depression, answer the questions that follow. 1) Which of the following men was President at the beginning of the Great Depression? a) Franklin Delano Roosevelt b) Herbert Hoover c) Woodrow Wilson d) Harry Truman 2) Which of the following is a true statement? a) Herbert Hoover wanted the federal government to help the situation during the depression. b) Herbert Hoover gave a lot of the government's money to help struggling Americans. c) Herbert Hoover didn't think the federal government should get involved with the troubles of the depression. d) Herbert Hoover got people back to work by various programs he started. 3) Which of the following is the name given to the day of the stock market crash in 1929? a) Desperate Monday b) Black Tuesday c) Black Thursday d) Fatal Friday 4) Which of the following events pushed the United States into full manufacturing production and brought unemployment way down? a) The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese b) The election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt c) The creation of the TVA d) The creation of the SEC 5) Which of the following is NOT a fact about conditions during the Great Depression? a) Millions of people lost their jobs. b) Many people lost their homes. c) Farmers could help out the poor in the cities with free food. d) Many banks had to close permanently. 6) Which of the following is the name for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's weekly talks to the American people? a) Evening Reports b) Saturday Morning Talks c) Fireside Chats d) People to People
Date CHAPTER GEOGRAPHY APPLICATION: MOVEMENT The Great Depression Takes Its Toll Section 2 Directions: Read the paragraphs below and study the map carefully. Then answer the questions that follow. The effects of the Great Depression were heartbreaking. In 1932, for example, not a single person was employed in 28 percent of the families in the United States. Widespread unemployment contributed greatly to the steep 40 percent fall in average family income in the four years 1929 1933. In 1933 nearly million workers, about 25 percent of the U.S. total, had no jobs. Rates of unemployment, though, were far from uniform across the country. Some states with industries such as radio and airplane production were relatively well off, so that at one point, in 1934, there was a 33 percent difference between the highest and lowest state unemployment rates. This disparity in unemployment rates started people moving all over the country. At the beginning, many unemployed city dwellers moved to the countryside, hoping that farms were better off economically than cities. But soon agriculture suffered just as much as other businesses, especially during the Dust Bowl drought that began in 1933. Tens of thousands of families in the hardest-hit states North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas put everything they owned into cars and trucks and left home. (By 1936, some areas were ghostlike, with more than half of the houses abandoned.) By the end of the decade, all of the hardest-hit states except for Colorado and Texas had experienced population declines, even though the U.S. population grew by 9 million people during the decade. ;;; ;; ;;;; ;;; Unemployment and Major Migration Routes, 1934 CA ID 24 ;;; ;;; ;;; AZ 21 Persons receiving unemployment as % of total state population 26% and over 16 25% Portland Seattle WA OR San Francisco Los Angeles NV MT 20 WY UT 23 CO 22 Albuquerque NM 31 Denver DUST BOWL ND 29 SD 41 ; ; ;;;;; ;;; NE TX 20 KS OK 28 MN 22 IA 11 MO 16 AR 19 LA WI IL MS MI IN TN 12 AL KY 19 OH GA WV 23 SC PA FL 21 VA 8 NC 10 VT NH 8 9 NY ME 10 MA 16 RI 11 CT 11 NJ 16 DE 8 MD 11 11 % 0 10% Migration route 0 0 400 Miles 600 Kilometers The Great Depression Begins 49
The Great Depression Takes Its Toll continued Interpreting Text and Visuals 1. Which four states had the highest unemployment rate in 1934? 2. Which region of the country east or west of the Mississippi River was better off in 1934? What statistics support your choice? 3. Which of the hardest-hit Dust Bowl states lost population in the 1930s? 4. What was the main destination of most people leaving the northern part of the Dust Bowl? Through which states did they travel? 5. What was the first destination of most people leaving the southern part of the Dust Bowl? What does the migration northward from Los Angeles imply? 50 Unit 4, Chapter Theme
Date CHAPTER PRIMARY SOURCE Letter from a Dust Bowl Survivor The following letter was written by a survivor of the Dust Bowl in McCracken, Section 2 Kansas. What problems does she attribute to the drought in the Great Plains? March 24, 1935 Dear Family, Did some of you think that you had a dust storm? I ll tell you what it was. It was us shaking our bedding, carpets, etc. For over a week we have been having troublesome times. The dust is something fierce. Sometimes it lets up enough so we can see around; even the sun may shine for a little time, then we have a frenzied time of cleaning, anticipating the comfort of a clean feeling once more. We keep the doors and windows all shut tight, with wet papers on the sills. The tiny particles of dirt sift right through the walls. Two different times it has been an inch thick on my kitchen floor. Our faces look like coal miners, our hair is gray and stiff with dirt and we grind dirt in our teeth. We have to wash everything just before we eat it and make it as snappy as possible. Sometimes there is a fog all through the house and all we can do about it is sit on our dusty chairs and see that fog settle slowly and silently over everything. When we open the door, swirling whirlwinds of soil beat against us unmercifully, and we are glad to go back inside and sit choking in the dirt. We couldn t see the streetlight just in front of the house. One morning, early, I went out during a lull, and when I started to return I couldn t see the house. I knew the direction, so I kept on coming, and was quite close before I could even see the outline. It sure made me feel funny. There has not been much school this week. It let up a little yesterday and Fred went with the janitor and they carried dirt out of the church by the scoopful. Four of them worked all afternoon. We were able to have church this morning, but I think many stayed home to clean. A lot of dirt is blowing now, but it s not dangerous to be out in it. This dirt is all loose, any little wind will stir it, and there will be no relief until we get rain. If it doesn t come soon there will be lots of suffering. If we spit or blow our noses we get mud. We have quite a little trouble with our chests. I understand a good many have pneumonia. As for gardens, we had ours plowed, but now we do not know whether we have more or less soil. It s useless to plant anything. Grace from Deb Mulvey, ed., We Had Everything but Money (Greendale, Wis.: Reiman, 1992), 43. Discussion Questions 1. According to Grace s letter, what problems did people living in the Dust Bowl encounter? 2. How would you describe Grace s attitude about the dust? 3. What qualities or traits do you think helped Grace and her family survive the difficulties that they faced? The Great Depression Begins 53