social impacts of great depression - u.s. historywheeler1976.weebly.com › uploads › 5 › 0 ›...
TRANSCRIPT
Social Impacts of Great Depression
Dorthea Lange’s “Migrant Mother”
Hoovervilles
• Makeshift shelter of the homeless during the early years of the Great Depression
• “Hoover Flags”
• “Hoover Blankets”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOdJIYFl5J0&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
Dust Bowl• Region in the Great Plains where drought and
dust storms took place for much of the 1930s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNkMaTruiEg&feature=related
Poverty and Society
*Impact on Health-Poor diet and medical care
*Stresses on Families
-living conditions declined as families moved in together
-men felt like failures
-women worried about feeding families
-working women were accused of taking jobs
Poverty and Society (continued)
*Discrimination increases
-African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans suffered as white laborers began to demand the low-paying jobs usually filled by minorities
Bonus Army
• WWI vets promised bonus after 1940
• In 1932 15,000 veterans poured in to Washington, D.C. demanded their bonus
• Congress rejected the payment
• Many went home, some stayed to protest, camped in “Hoovervilles”
Bonus Army
• Remaining veterans were driven out by the U.S. military
• Americans were outraged
• Blamed President Hoover
Government during the Great Depression
VS
President Herbert Hoover
• Laissez Faire-did not want to increase government role
• Felt it was not governments role to assist the needy
• Encouraged churches and charity to aid people in need
• Persuaded business leaders to maintain wages
Herbert Hoover
Hoover
• Realizes it is not enough!
• Reconstruction Finance Corporation-gave loans to banks and RRs
• Public works projects-gov’t funded construction
– Gave jobs!
Hoover Dam
The Election of 1932
Herbert Hoover(Republican)
• Government should not get involved in the economic and social affairs of its citizens (laissez faire).
• Government should not expand the size of the Federal Bureaucracy. This is too expensive.
• Voluntary aid should be given by business and the wealthy to relieve the Depression.
Franklin D. Roosevelt(Democrat)
• Government has an obligation to provide for the welfare and well being of its citizens.
• Government should not economize at the expense of starving citizens.
• Promised a NEW DEAL for the American people.
• The Federal Government needs to get involved and be active to bring us out of Depression.
Electoral results-1932 election