"We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us."

The Republican bosses did not want Hoover to be the candidate

The public did – “Hoo but Hoover” Democratic candidate – Al Smith of New

York, four time governor of New York◦ a Roman Catholic◦ A “wet”◦ Nickname : the Happy Warrior◦ No high school or college

Radio plays a big part in the election. Smith’s thick New York accent played against him

Anti-Catholicism played a role in his defeat. “A vote for Smith is a vote for the Pope.”

Hoover didn’t like that and tried to get people to stop using religion

Hoover wins in a landslide. Former solid Democratic states such as

Texas, Tennessee, N. Carolina, and Virginia voted for Hoover

Smith even lost New York Hoover won because of the economy and

the good times.

An orphan and worked his way through Stanford University

Became a successful mining engineer and businessman (a self-made millionaire)

Had never run for public office but was a well known humanitarian

Strong believer in laissez-faire Strong belief in self help

Passed the Agricultural Marketing Act- a revolving fund of ½ a billion dollars loan money to agricultural cooperatives that bought, sold or stored surpluses

Hawley-Smoot Tariff – designed to protect farmers, but lobbyist changed it to be the highest protective tariff in peacetime history. Foreign nations viewed this a economic war.

It will plunge the U.S. and foreign nations deeper into the Depression

1. Rising stock dividends. 2. Increase in personal savings. 3. Relatively easy money policy.

4. Companies invested their over-production profits in new production.

5. Lack of stock market regulation.

6. Psychology of consumption.

The U.S. economy looked unstoppable when Hoover took office in March, 1929

People speculation on stocks was near a bursting point.

Enormous wealth was actually paper wealth

Triggered by the Brits who raised interest rates in order to lure investors back to their shores

Buying enormous amounts of goods on credit

Federal Reserve, the nation's central bank, played a critical, if inadvertent, role in weakening the economy.

In an effort to curb stock market speculation, the Federal Reserve slowed the growth of the money supply

Then allowed the money supply to fall dramatically after the stock market crash, producing a "liquidity crisis."

Consumers found themselves unable to repay loans, while businesses did not have the capital to finance business operations.

Instead of actively stimulating the economy by cutting interest rates and expanding the money supply--the way monetary authorities fight recessions today--the Federal Reserve allowed the country's money supply to decline by 27 percent between 1929 and 1933.

October 29, 1929 16,410,030 shares

sold in a save my a… move by people.

In less than two months, stockholders lost $40 billion dollars or more than the cost of WWI to the Americans

By 1930 four million Americans were unemployed, in two years this would triple.

Signs of the time - “ We’re firing, not hiring”“Mellon pulled the whistle

Hoover rang the bellWall Street gave the signal

And the Country went to hell”

Over 5,000 banks collapsed in three years

Savings were goneFarms and homes foreclosedPsychological damage on Fathers who couldn’t provide for their families

A decade long decline in the birthrate

Unemployment and poverty

Breakdown of families

Soaring high school dropout rates (2 to 4 million)

Homelessness

Organized protests

“I do not believe that the power and the 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.”

Going to Soup Kitchens for a meal Ragged individualist sleeping under “Hoover Blankets”

Fighting over the contents of a garbage can

Living in shanty towns called Hoovervilles

A farming peonage system starting among Blacks and Whites

Langston Hughes wrote, “ The depression brought everybody down a peg or two. And Negroes had but a few pegs to fall.”

Increased lynching in the South Scottsboro Case “It’s bad enough being black, why be a

red?”

Got Congress to delegate immense funds for public works such as the Hoover Dam

The Reconstruction Finance Corporation headed by Houstonian Jesse Jones◦Pump priming loans given to major

corporations◦The government eventually makes money

when these loans were repaid◦Had trouble first with a Republican Congress

that believed in rugged individualism, then the Democrats who swept into office in 1930 mid-term elections

Many veterans of WWI were hard hit by the depression

Former soldiers turned to the government for help as the government had turned to them in 1917

Congress had passed a bonus for the soldiers that would be payable in 1945

In 1932, the veterans organized into the BEF and marched 20,000 strong on Washington

Set up a large Hooverville on vacant lots. The large numbers were to threaten

Congress into paying the bonus early Congress narrowly voted the bill down Hoover convinced 6,000 to go home if he

paid the fare.

Following riots that killed two, Hoover ordered the Army to evacuate the crowd.

Hoover claimed that they were “Reds” and riff-raff

Gen. Douglas MacArthur carried out the eviction with bayonet and tear gas and torched the shanties. A few former soldiers were injured and an infant died of tear gas poisoning

“Hoover happened to be in a bad spot. The Depression had come on and there he was. If Jesus Christ had been there , he’d had the same problem. It’s to bad for poor old Herbie that he happened to be there. This was a world wide depression. It wasn’t his fault. In 1932 …. A monkey could have been elected against him, no question asked.”

Marvin Devries

On the Great Plains, the top soil literally blew away, piling up in ditches like "snow drifts in winter."

The Dust Bowl produced unparalleled human tragedy, but it had not occurred by accident.

The Plains had always been a harsh, arid inhospitable environment.

Nevertheless, a covering of tough grass-roots, called sod, permitted the land to retain moisture and support vegetation.

During the 1890s, however, overgrazing by cattle severely damaged the sod.

During World War I, demand for wheat and the use of gasoline-powered tractors allowed farmers to plow large sections of the prairie for the first time.

The fragile skin protecting the prairie was destroyed.

When drought struck, beginning in 1930, and temperatures soared (to 108 degrees in Kansas for weeks on end) the wind began to blow the soil away.

One Kansas county, which produced 3.4 million bushels of wheat in 1931, harvested just 89,000 bushels in 1933.

Tenant farmers found themselves evicted from their land.

By 1939, a million Dust Bowl refugees and other tenant farmers left the Plains to work as itinerant produce pickers in California.

As a result, whole counties were depopulated. In one part of Colorado, 2,811 homes were abandoned, while an additional 1,522 people simply disappeared.

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White Angel Migrant Mother

by Dorothea Lange

• John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath told the story of an Oklahoma family fleeing the Dust Bowl to find a new life in California.

• Steinbeck, like many writers of this time, wrote of poverty, misfortune, and social injustice.

The Depression in Art

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