TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Hoover and the Stock Market Crash

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Objectives

• Learn about America’s economic problems during the late 1920s.

• Understand how the Great Depression started.

• Find out how the Depression affected Americans.

• Explore President Hoover’s response to the Depression.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Terms and People

• overproduction – situation in which the supply of manufactured goods exceeds the demand

• bankruptcy – financial failure caused by a company’s inability to pay its debts

• default – failure to repay a loan

• bonus – extra payment

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Why did the economy collapse after the stock market crash?

The prosperity many Americans enjoyed came to a sudden halt in 1929.

During the Great Depression, poverty and desperation became a way of life.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Despite President Hoover’s optimistic outlook, the economy had weakened during the 1920s.

Older industries such as mining, railroads, and clothing manufacturing had declined. So too, had agriculture.

Yet stock prices continued to skyrocket.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

They lost their gamble in October 1929, when stock prices began a rapid slide.

Brokers who had lent people money to buy stocks on margin called in the loans.

Many were likely to default, so they sold their stocks.

Many Americans had bought stocks on margin, gambling that prices would continue to soar.

Stock prices dropped even more.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

On Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the stock market collapsed as prices hit rock bottom.

Valuable stock certificates were now worthless pieces of paper.

Many Americans lost everything.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

The stock market crash alone, however, was not the only symptom of the Depression.

GreatDepressionOverproduction

Banking crisis

Business failures

Unemployment

Stock market crash

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Overproduction resulted in a huge supply of goods.

Two key industries—housing and automobiles—were hit especially hard.

Many people, however, had cut back on spending.

Most people who could afford cars or houses had already bought them, so prices fell quickly.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

A banking crisis also contributed to the Depression.

• Many people were unable to repay their loans.

• Banks also lost money on the stock market.

When they ran out of money, the banks went out of business.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Terrified depositors ran to their banks, demanding their money.

Many found that their money was gone.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Business failures added to the deepening crisis.

Many companies closed, forced into bankruptcy.

With little money, consumers stopped spending. Business profits plunged.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

With factories and businesses closing, more workers lost their jobs.

By 1933, some 13 million people were unemployed.

Some resorted to selling apples and pencils on the street.

Even those with jobs suffered from pay cuts.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

The Great Depression soon spread worldwide.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

As the Depression worsened, poverty swept across the country.

People lined up for food at soup kitchens run by churches and other charities.

Now, urban Americans struggled to feed their families.

In earlier times, people could rely on their own farms to get by.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

The Depression was especially hard on families.

Many had to leave home in search of

work.

Children often went hungry.

They put off marriage.

Couples Fathers Children

When they did marry,

couples had fewer

children.

Ashamed, some

deserted their families.

Many could not attend

school.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

The homeless built makeshift shelters on the outskirts of the cities.

They called the shantytowns Hoovervilles.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Hoover asked businesses and state and local governments to create work for the jobless.

Gave money to local governments

for public-works projects

Funded critical businesses like

banks, insurance companies, and

railroads

He also established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Government forces fired on the “Bonus Army.” The little support Hoover had left vanished.

But it wasn’t enough. Support for Hoover diminished further in June 1932.

Veterans marched to Washington.

Struggling army veterans began to demand immediate payment of their bonuses. Hoover refused.

Congress refused their plea.