Term
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Definition
| People were buying as much stock as they could in the 1920s because people thought the goods times wouldn't end; that the market would always go up. |
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Term
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Definition
| Organized system of buying and selling stocks (part ownership of a corporation). The U.S.' biggest stock market is the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in NYC. |
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Term
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Definition
| A publicly owned company; a company that you can buy stock in. |
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Term
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Definition
| People were buying stocks on credit in the 1920s. This is a very dangerous activity that assumes the market will improve. It is one of the causes of the Great Depression. |
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Term
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Definition
| October 29, 1929 - the day of the largest stock market crash in U.S. history. Panic selling occurred and people lost their investments all in one day. This is the immediate (short term) cause of the Great Depression. |
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Term
| Causes of the Great Depression |
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Definition
Stock Market Crash (short term)
Overproduction
Gap between rich and poor
Credit crisis
Bank Failures
International Depression
Unemployment |
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Term
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Definition
| The U.S. industries were getting so efficient at production that they were making too many items and then could not sell them. This results in huge layoffs as companies cut costs. |
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Term
| Gap Between Rich and Poor |
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Definition
| in 1929, 33% of the wealth was in the hands of 1% of the population. The average American was failing to keep up with inflation. |
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Term
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Definition
| Americans had gotten in the habit of purchasing items on credit (without having the money to pay for the item immediately). They thought they would always have jobs and therefore could expect to pay off debts over time. When they lost their jobs, this plan was destroyed. |
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Term
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Definition
| People who placed their money in banks rather than the stock market were affected as well. Banks loaned money to people who were unable to pay back these loans. As a result, those people who went to the bank to get their money bank were unable to do so. The federal government fixed this issue with the creation of the FDIC during the New Deal, but that was to late for those at the outset of the depression. |
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Term
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Definition
| As the rest of the world works to recover from WWI, they do not have money to spend on American products either. To make matters worse, Congress increased tariffs on foreign goods with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930. Other countries then did the same to us, cutting foreign trade. |
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Term
| Unemployment during the Depression |
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Definition
| Unemployment prior to the Depression was around four percent, but spiked to 25% by 1933. For the decade of the 1930s, unemployment averaged 20%. |
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Term
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Definition
| Shacks and temporary housing built by homeless people looking to provide shelter for their families. They are named "Hoovervilles" in order to place the blame for the Depression on President Hoover. |
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Term
| President Hoover and the Depression |
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Definition
| Felt that the citizens have a responsibility to pull themselves out of the Depression. He felt that the government should stay out of the lives of private citizens and that the economy would fix itself. This is a traditional Republican point of view. Citizens at the time did not agree and voted him out of office in 1932 in favor of FDR. |
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Term
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Definition
| WWI veterans went to Wsashington, D.C. to lobby the government for early payment of a bonus for fighting in WWI (it wasn't due to be paid until 1945 but they wanted it early to relieve the Depression). Hoover had the military chase the veteran protesters out with tear gas. Americans viewed this as the last straw for Hoover. |
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Term
| Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
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Definition
| Former governor of New York, FDR was first elected in 1932 to replace Hoover. FDR was very aggressive in addressing the Great Depression, dramatically increasing the size, power, and spending of the federal government in order to help the U.S. His policies as a group were called the New Deal. |
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Term
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Definition
| FDR used the radio to communicate with the citizens each Sunday night. In his Fireside Chats, FDR explained what the government was doing to assist the citizens during the Depression. Citizens appreciated this new access to the President. |
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Term
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Definition
| FDR's first one hundred days in office showed that he, unlike Hoover, was going to be very aggressive in his attempts to solve the Depression. He passed numerous new policies, some of which were successful and others that were not. This increased the size, power, and spending of the federal government. |
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Term
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Definition
| FDR's plan to solve the Great Depression. The federal government took on new responsibilities for the citizens, increased its size, power, and spending. It helped somewhat, but did not end the Great Depression. |
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Term
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Definition
| A collection of ideas put forth by FDR in his New Deal. The ideas were known by their initials, such as AAA and NRA. |
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Term
| Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) |
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Definition
| 18 to 25 year old males charged with improving the nation's parks and nature areas. |
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Term
| Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) |
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Definition
| Paid farmers to reduce production. Declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. |
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Term
| Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) |
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Definition
| Built dams in rural Tennessee in order to control flooding and generate electricity for people who previously did not have electricity in their homes. |
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Term
| Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) |
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Definition
| Created to insure bank customers' accounts. Gave people reason to trust banks again after the failures at the beginning of the Depression. |
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Term
| Assessing the First New Deal |
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Definition
| The New Deal did not end the Great Depression. However, people began to believe in the idea that the nation could pull out of the Depression and FDR was easily reelected. Many people thought FDR was going too far in making the government too big, too powerful and too expensive. Others felt he wasn't going far enough. |
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Term
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Definition
| Brilliant First Lady who listened to people's issues by talking with the public and reading and responding to their letters. |
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Term
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Definition
| People (mostly men) who illegally boarded trains and travelled from town to town to find work. |
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Term
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Definition
| As if the Depression wasn't bad enough, the Great Plains suffers a terrible drought and the topsoil turned to dust and blew away. This caused 40,000 to leave for other areas, especially California. People who left Oklahoma were called "Okies." |
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Term
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Definition
| Gave people an escape and were VERY popular. Movies such as Snow White (1937), The Wizard of OZ (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939) were huge hits. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) documents an Okie family leaving the plains to go to California. |
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Term
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Definition
| FDR's second term (1936 - 1940) sees another wave of ideas to try to help the citizens during the Depression. Again, the government got bigger, more powerful, and more expensive. |
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Term
| Works Progress Administration (WPA) |
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Definition
| employed 2 million Americans in building/repairing public roads and buildings (JHS included). |
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Term
| Social Security Act (1935) |
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Definition
Taxed workers to create a pension for retired workers
Gave unemployment money to those who lost their jobs
Aided people with disabilities, elderly poor
Created the federal welfare system |
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Term
| FDR and the Supreme Court |
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Definition
| During his first term, FDR had several of his New Deal programs struck down as unconstitutional by the High Court. This greatly angered FDR. |
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Term
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Definition
| FDR sought to add 6 justices to Supreme Court, moving the number to 15. He would get to choose the new judges, guaranteeing himself a majority on the Court. This plan did not succeed, but because FDR was a four term President, he was able to choose many new Justices anyway, including Robert H. Jackson of Jamestown, NY. |
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