9.2.4 The Great Depression

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9.2: the INTERBELLUM

9.2.4: the Great Depression

AGE 9. The Time of World Wars

In this lesson:

The 1920s in the USA were called the Roaring Twenties: the economy prospered.

In 1929 this ended with the Wall Street Crash.

This was the start of the Great Depression.

President Roosevelt tried to fight the crisis with his New Deal.

Introduction

During the 1920s, the economy of the United States of America was booming. Industry grew and skyscrapers were built. One could buy cars and other luxury goods on credit, which means that you pay for something later. Getting a loan was easy, but this led to problems when in 1929 an economic crisis struck the USA.

the charleston is a dance that developed in the USA after WW1

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Black Tuesday

• Wall Street has some of the biggest stock exchanges 
• Stock > buying a section of a company
• The Roaring Twenties, time in the USA when the economy grew, bringing prosperity for many Americans
• Some people used savings to buy stocks, to get rich quickly > even using borrowed money
•  Stocks were in high demand > the prices went up
• Everything was great until 24th Ocotober 1929: the Wall Street Crash of 1929 (Black Tuesday)
• The value of many stocks went down, prompting owners to sell their stocks as soon as possible. 
  

Consequence of the ‘Black Friday’: cars are being sold for cash. Dated December 1929.

summarize

1. always write down the title of the paragraph.
   
2. write down what Wall Street's stock market is.
   
3. write down what the Roaring Twenties were
   
4. write what happened on Black Tuesday
   

• People sold their stocks fast > the price plummeted and the financial market collapsed. 
• People lost trust in economic growth: nobody wanted to buy stocks > they lost their value and people with stocks lost their investment
• This started a Depression Cycle:
• Companies and industries lost their investment and fewer people bought their products > they went bankrupt
• Employees were fired and the jobless Americans couldn't pay back their loans > Banks went bankrupt
• Setbacks in agriculture made it worse >  economic crisis was the result.

summarize

1. Explain how the collapse of the stock market caused a depression cycle.
   

Poverty and unemployment

• The period of the economic crisis is called the Great Depression, because it was the longest economical crisis in the 20th century which affected the whole world (lasted from 1929 till late 1930s)
• Thanks to the Dawesplan the economy of the USA and Europe were intertwined > American banks wanted their loans back, but the Europeans (Germans) couldn't afford it.
• In the USA millions of people lost their jobs and fell into poverty > Couldn't pay their mortgage or rent and they had to sell their houses, becoming homeless.
• They started building their own slums called shantytowns.
• Some shantytowns were called Hoovervilles, named after president Herbert Hoover.
• He believed that the government shouldn't intervene and that the crisis would eventually resolve itself > during his presidency, the USA didn't recover from the grasp of poverty

An impoverished American family living in a slum, 1936.

summarize

1. write down the title of this paragraph
   
2. write down how long the Great Depression lasted
   
3. write down some effects the Depression had on American people
   
4. write down how Hoover wanted to solve the crisis
   

The Road to recovery 

• In 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt got elected as president
• He had a new strategy to battle the crisis called the New Deal.
• Roosevelt involved the government in stopping the crisis:

1. Unemployed people got money from the state, called the dole (to help the poor and boost the economy), 
2. he ordered large building projects to be constructed, 
3. he gave subsidies to farmers and 
4. helped banks, which were inspected more often

• Spending government money feels strange in a time of crisis, but it restored trust, reduced unemployement and gave people money to spend; this helped the economy recover, but the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties would not return until after World War II.

Cartoon that predicts the deficit of the New Deal. Franklin Delano Roosevelt with a pump that does not work. Dated 1935.

Presidential nicknames

U.S. Presidents sometimes become known by their initials when they are in office and afterwards too: Franklin Delano Roosevelt is known as FDR, John Fitzgerald Kennedy as JFK and Lyndon Baines Johnson as LBJ. President Dwight David Eisenhower was nicknamed Ike.

summarize

1. write down the title of this paragraph
   
2. write down what the New Deal was. Include some examples and don't forget to mention the president's name
   
3. write down what the effect of the ND was.
   

Why would you order large building projects to boost the economy?

Testweek

Discuss one question together with your teacher

Check your answers, write down any questions you have and note down what you'll need to practice more.

Cartoon that predicts the deficit of the New Deal. Franklin Delano Roosevelt with a pump that does not work. Dated 1935.

Study the cartoon.
a) Was this cartoon published during the Russian Revolution or
during the Civil War (1p)?
b) What is the artist's POV, pro- or anti Bolsheviks?(1p),
c) and what is his message (3p)?

Viktor Deni was a Russian political cartoonist and poster designer. His most iconic cartoon is 'Comrade Lenin Cleans the Earth from Scum' (1920).