POLI1061 Lecture 5: UNIT FIVE
2 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Causes of the Depression
❖ Lack of Diversification
➢ few basic industries
➢ fall of automobile purchases because everyone had one how many can you sell
➢ replacement industries not fully developed
❖ Maldistribution of Wealth
➢ lessened consumer demand
➢ slowed consumer economy because many were too poor
➢ weak market
❖ Credit Structure
➢ Increasing personal debt
■ people w/ credit using money they didn’t have up consumer economy
until bubble bursts because can't pay debt
➢ Crop prices too low for farmer profit
➢ Buying on margin
■ stockbrokers gave people money to invest people wouldn’t have money
to pay back
❖ Decline of Exports
➢ decline of demand from europe because too poor
➢ high american trade tariffs
❖ International Debt Structure
➢ Europe owes money US, US gives to Germany, Germany owes to Europe no
one has enough
Progress of the Depression
★ stock market is trigger and a cause but not the cause
★ 9,000 banks closed
★ loss of 2.5 bil
★ down ⅓ of national $
★ blamed Federal Reserve system who in turn raised interest rates
★ GNP down
Americans During Depression
find more resources at oneclass.com
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➔ British Economist John Keynes compared Depression to the dark ages
➔ South Western Great Plains suffer the Dust bowl as well
◆ Americans couldn’t afford small amount of produced crops
◆ Dust Bowlers called Okies traveled to Cali and elsewhere to find jobs
➔ Red Cross has massive breadlines
➔ relief systems unprepared/equipt
➔ people were ashamed because social darwinism
➔ Northeast and Midwest high unemployment rates
◆ cleveland Ohio had 50% unemployment rates
◆ Akrow 60%
◆ Toledo 80%
African Americans in the GD and New Deal
❏ high black unemployment rates
❏ Atlanta 1930s Black Shirts Organization campaigned w slogn No jobs for n******
until every white man has a job
❏ Complete failure of sharecropping expands Great Migration
❏ Jacob Lawrence creates The Migration of the Negro to portray the movement
● Scottsboro Case
○ March 1931 9 teenagers were taken off a freight train were arrested and two
women who had not been raped accused them of rape
○ nine of the Scottsboro boys was convicted and 8 were sentenced to death
○ Ruling over turned by the supreme court
■ International Labor Defense and the Communist Party
■ National Association for the Advancement of Colored People helped as
well trials through 1930s
■ last left prison in 1950s
➔ NAACP tries to improve labor conditions
◆ forms Congress of Industrial Organizations to help racial barriers labor unions
◆ Walter White is secretary appealed to blacks to stay out of strikes
◆ 20% blacks in Steelworkers Union
❏ NEW DEAL
❏ Eleanor Roosevelt speaks for racial equality
❏ Marian Anderson is refused concert in Daughters of Amer Revolution
auditorium ER resigns from organization then along w Interior Secretary Harold
Ickes got her permission to sing on steps of Lincoln Memorial
❏ FDR appointed black officials; Robert weaver, William Hastie, and Mary
McLeod Bethune who were called the Black Cabinet
❏ ¼ of AAs receiving relief in 1935 helped by Harry Hopkins
❏ Civilian Conservation Corps segregated black work crews
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find more resources at oneclass.com
❏ NRA paid blacks less
❏ TVA excluded AA employment
❏ Federal Housing Administration refused mortgages for AAs in white
neighborhoods
❏ WPA gave them worse jobs
Indians and the New Deal
★ John Collier in New Mexico hoped to reduce pressures of assimilations on Indians
★ Indian Reorganization act of 1934 restored tribes right to share ownership of land
★ still bad land
Mexicans During GD
● unskilled urban or agricultural workers
● unemployed whites demanded the jobs of the hispanics
● mexicans were forced to leave the country
● could not receive access to many hospitals or schools
Asians in the GD
★ most of them worked at family fruit stands because even educated ones were not
allowed into the workforce
★ lost jobs to whites and farms to banks
★ Organized Japanese American Democratic Clubs to protect minorities from
discrimination
★ Japanese American Businessmen tried to assimilate
★ Japanese American Citizens league in 1930 to promote their goals had 6000 members
in 1940
★ Chinese People struggled 2
Veterans in the New Deal
❖ Economy Act cuts pay for veterans and govt workers veterans by 15%
❖
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Fall of automobile purchases because everyone had one how many can you sell. Slowed consumer economy because many were too poor. People w/ credit using money they didn"t have up consumer economy. Credit structure until bubble bursts because can"t pay debt. Crop prices too low for farmer profit. Stockbrokers gave people money to invest people wouldn"t have money. Decline of demand from europe because too poor. Europe owes money us, us gives to germany, germany owes to europe no. Stock market is trigger and a cause but not the cause. Blamed federal reserve system who in turn raised interest rates. British economist john keynes compared depression to the dark ages. South western great plains suffer the dust bowl as well. Americans couldn"t afford small amount of produced crops. Dust bowlers called okies traveled to cali and elsewhere to find jobs. African americans in the gd and new deal until every white man has a job.
