From 4eca428856d3d456d547d8875c940b2fc8582529 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Holden Rohrer Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2020 18:51:04 -0400 Subject: great depression lecture USH --- smith/11_great_depression | 111 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 111 insertions(+) create mode 100644 smith/11_great_depression (limited to 'smith') diff --git a/smith/11_great_depression b/smith/11_great_depression new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f43c8f --- /dev/null +++ b/smith/11_great_depression @@ -0,0 +1,111 @@ +Election of 1928: Herbet Hoover (R) vs. Al Smith (D) +- Hoover is debt and tax reducer, successful businessman +- Al Smith was popular with Northern city democrats + - Poor grandson of Irish-Catholics, NY governor + - First Roman Catholic, opposed prohibition + - Made him less popular with South + - Forced to deal with constant criticism unlike Hoover +- No Democrat could have won because US was doing well + - Won 444-87 +Herbet Hoover boosted trust in the Great Bull Market +- Prices swung high on reckless speculation +- Andrew Mellon reduced taxes, giving people money to invest +- Hoover sold off stocks while telling people to be careful + - "saw [the bubble] coming" +- "Buy on margin": borrow money from a small deposit and purchase stocks + - Lenders gave 2/3 of stock value by 1929 + - Signs that economy was weakening in early 1929 w/ declining +- Mid-October 1929: stocks go into steep decline + - Investors still remained cheery in early month + - Investors want to sell stocks as stocks go down late in month + - run on banks + - Lose $50B by the end of the month, $15B on the day + - "Black Tuesday": worst day in stock mkt history + - Fear and uncertainty + - 26K businesses shut down and more failed + - IMPORTANT: Collapse of Stock Market did NOT cause Great Depression +- Depression was a vicious cycle + - Low demand -> low production -> layoffs -> less spending -> lower + stocks, lower demand -> lower production + +What were the underlying causes of the Great Depression? +- Actually in Recession months before stock mkt crash because of + overproduction + - Business owners denied wage increases to employees -> imbalance + - Unproductive borrowing by workers +- Farm incomes stalled after Great War, and farmers started borrowing + w/o basis of European demand (lower prices) + - Record Harvests pinched farm income +- Government policies also contributed + - Tarriffs on outside production: 1933 Smoot-Polly tarriff + (agriculture) actually raised prices on raw materials and consumer + products after revisioning + - Economists lobbied Hoover to veto, but he didn't + - Other countries tarriffed US +- European economy still damaged by WWI and Treaty of Versailles +- Victorious nations couldn't pay war debt to eachother and $11B to US, + forced to borrow further billions from US banks. + - German economy also dependent on US borrowing + - Failure to repay deepened American depression + - Tarriffs hurt their economies + +# The Human Cost +Depression was worst in history. +Huge unemployment numbers, esp. for farm workers +Bankruptcies and foreclosures were fought desperately. +"Hold-ups and killings are becoming more frequent." +City-dwellers became street merchants (ex. selling apples on the street) +Accountants, doctors, professionals were ashamed + - avoided medical care, checkups so as not to "go on relief" +- 1/4 of children suffered from malnutrition +Families of unemployed workers had 66% more illnesses. +NYC hospitals reported 130 cases of starvation deaths. +Millions in charities, bread lines +1K Homeowners lost their homes each day to foreclosures +- many had to move in with +Poorhouses were overwhelmed by the number of homeless +- forced to live in culverts, bridges +- build Hoovervilles +Hobos sneak onto trains to sleep. NYC live on subway trains. +- 54 homeless arrested on a train celebrated because jail feeds them +- Begging, crime, prostitution soared +Married couples decided not to have children, others sending children to +live with relatives and friends. +Women forced to keep their households emotionally together +- Married women teachers were laid off to stop "stealing jobs" from men +African-Americans had it worse, with the lowest-paying menial jobs +- still faced much discrimination: jobs, segregation +- many lived in cramped cabins w/o running water, heat, indoor plumbing +- highest rate of unemployment +Chinese, Japanese migrant workers competed for work and moved towards +cities +- officials want to deport Mexican-born Americans (and their Am. chdren) + +Dust Bowl - "Black Blizzards" of topsoil +- Farming was terrible because topsoil was removed +- Oakies/Arkies (Oklahoma, Arkansa) moved to cities w/o money to pay + rent, mortgage + - Little Oklahoma squatter camps + - California farm labor was little better + - Derided by locals +- *The Grapes of Wrath* by John Steinbeck + - traveled with workers during GD for research + - "Rich Fellas come up and they die, but [poor people] don't; they + just keep on coming." +- Hollywood reassured people during the GD + - 60+ million Americans attended the movies each week + - "Gone with the Wind" and "The Grapes of Wrath" super popular + - as movies and as books + - represented worries about the collapse of agrarian life and + family + - Grapes of Wrath: theme of moving forward despite suffering and + loss + - Gone with the Wind: pub 1936 released 1939, nostalgia for + antebellum south + - Civil War happens to Scarlet, and she wants to survive as + a plantation owner despite social upheaval + - "Tommorow is another day" --- The South will rise again + - Greatest Hollywood success ever + - Presented docile slaves who "preferred servitude to + freedom," boycotted by NAACP + - Film reduced politics of the novel -- cgit