The Beginning of the Great Depression

• Causes• How bad was it?• The New Deal

1920s• 106,521,537 people in the United

States  • 2,132,000 unemployed,

Unemployment 5.2%  • Life expectancy:  Male 53.6,  

Female 54.6  • 343.000 in military (down from

1,172,601 in 1919)  • Average annual earnings $1236; 

Teacher's salary  $970  • Dow Jones High 100  Low 67   • Illiteracy rate reached a new low of

6% of the population.   • Gangland crime included murder,

swindles, racketeering  • It took 13 days to reach California

from New York  There were 387,000 miles of paved road. 

• Population: 123,188,000 in 48 states

• Life Expectancy: Male, 58.1; Female, 61.6

• Average salary: $1,368

• Unemployment rises to 25%

• Huey Long propses a guaranteed annual income of $2,500

• Car Sales: 2,787,400

• Food Prices: Milk, 14 cents a qt.; Bread, 9 cents a loaf; Round Steak, 42 cents a pound

• Lynchings: 21

1930s

Herbert Hoover:

• "I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering. . . . The lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people." (1930)

• "Once upon a time my political opponents honored me as possessing the fabulous intellectual and economic power by which I created a world-wide depression all by myself.

The Great Depression• 1920s Inflation / False Prosperity • Buying on the Margin• Black Tuesday• Banks Close

– By 1932 widespread bank failures, home and farm foreclosures, unemployment, suicides, are all rampant.

• Hoover’s Plan– Hoover opposes direct

government sponsored relief believes relief work is business of volunteer organizations like Red Cross. Seeks to stimulate economy at highest levels through trickle down policies.

• Hoovervilles• Migrant Workers• Red Cross

How Bad Was it?

• Starvation• Hoovervilles• Suicides• Unemployment• Overproduction• Violent Crime• Instability• The Bonus March • Gov’t Relief

Overview of the New Deal The Crash and Hoover’s Response

• 1929 Crash coupled by massive drought leads to Great Depression

• 1932 election was landslide v. Republicans, Roosevelt rode that landslide.

• I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people. - Franklin Roosevelt 1932– But what does it mean?

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FDR’s New Deal3 Rs and Alphabet Agencies

New Deal Overview The First New Deal

• New Deal promises had been vague

• Brains Trust – Tugwell, Moley, Frankfurter etc.– Young, non-gov

• Goal is restoration of mass purchasing power. (Recovery)

• Fireside Chats• 100 Days

– Bank Holiday– NRA (1933-1935)– CCC – TVA– FDIC

The Second New Deal• After 1934 congressional

elections focus shifts to relief and reform.

• WPA• Social Security • NLRB – Wagner Act• Keynesian Economics• Recession of 1937• Conservative Critics• “Demagogues”

– Huey Long– Dr. Townsend– Father Coughlin

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1939 The New Deal Ends – WWII Begins

• Recession of 1937

• Unemployment down from 25% but still near 15%

• War related orders bring about full employment in 1941 www.nps.gov

1910s 1920s

• FACTS about this decade.  • Population:  92,407,000 • Life Expectancy:  Male 48.4   Female: 51.8 • Average Salary  $750 / year • The Ziegfeld girls earned $75/week. • Unemployed 2,150,000 • National Debt:  $1.15 billion • Union Membership: 2.1 million Strikes

1,204 • Attendance:  Movies 30 million per week • Lynchings:  76 • Divorce:  1/1000 • Vacation:  12 day cruise  $60 • Whiskey $3.50 / gallon, Milk $.32 / gallon • Speeds make automobile safety an issue • 25,000 performers tour 4,000 U.S. theaters

• 106,521,537 people in the United States  • 2,132,000 unemployed, Unemployment

5.2%  • Life expectancy:  Male 53.6,   Female

54.6  • 343.000 in military (down from 1,172,601

in 1919)  • Average annual earnings $1236; 

Teacher's salary  $970  • Dow Jones High 100  Low 67   • Illiteracy rate reached a new low of 6% of

the population.   • Gangland crime included murder,

swindles, racketeering  • It took 13 days to reach California from

New York  There were 387,000 miles of paved road. 

Progressive Historians

• F. Turner, C. Beard, F Allen

• By own admission too close to the event to adequately analyze it.

• “because nothing can be described in itself. True, a list of congressional acts may be enumerated and quoted in full, but that is not a description of them.” Charles Beard 1934

Consensus Historians 40s-60s

• Hofstadter, Leuchtenburg, Schleissinger• Leuchtenburg’s 1963 Franklin D. Roosevelt and

the New Deal. • Recognize limits of the New Deal but generally

simpathetic.• Roosevelt Revolution• “Mr. Roosevelt may have given the wrong

answers to many of his problems, but he is the first… who has asked the right questions.” Leucthenburg 1963

1960s Critiques of Leuchtenburg

• Kirkendall – New Deal was not watershed

• “although evidence has increased in support of the thesis that the New Deal years were a time of great change, not all recent scholarship has emphasized this” Richard Kirkendall, 1968

New Left Historians Radical Assault on Consensus

History• Howard Zinn – New Deal didn’t go far enough,

didn’t really represent change at all.• New Left were Marx influenced but not as

dogmatic. Shaped by 60s social upheaval.• “The story of the New Deal is a sad story, the

ever recurring story of what might have been.” Paul Conkin, 1967

New Social Histories and New Labor History

• Lizabeth Cohen – Look at how people / workers influenced the New Deal era. Especially union members.

• Switch from looking for new answers to old questions to looking for new questions.