Chapter 32 & 33: Human Impact of Great Depression and The New Deal

1. Psychological stress when men lost their jobs , ashamed to be unemployed
   1. Unemployment rates rose up to 25%

1. Men lost their status of authority, many left to find work becoming hobos.
   1. Birthrates dropped, less marriages, some don't divorce due to financial needs.
      1. Evictions force people out of their homes
         1. Evicted from homes because they couldn't pay rent or mortgages
            1. Hoovervilles sprang up around many cities

               Annotations:

               • Desertion rates rose, Men would leave their families when unable to support them. Teenagers left home in search of work.

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• Due to Underconsumption, farmers faced having to sell their farms in desperation.

1. Property values decreased
   1. Farmers received less for their land than they had paid for it
2. Those who could not sell there farms lost them to foreclosure

   Annotations:

   • Foreclosure: A legal process that allows a lender (bank) to take over the property it has helped a borrower buy.

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• Define Malnutrition

1. Lack of proper nutrition led to disease
2. To feed the hungry soup kitchens and breadlines sprang up.

   Annotations:

   • Define Soup kitchens and Breadlines.
   1. For many, that soup kitchen meal and bread was the only food they would eat all day

1. During WW1 farmers increased # of wheat harvested & by 1930 were harvesting more than 10 years earlier
   1. Such intensive use of land depleted the soil of its nutrients and stripped it of its vegetation

      Annotations:

      • Once the drought came, nothing protected the soil causing the winds to pick it up easily and blow it away.
2. Starting in the summer of 1931 there would begin many years of drought conditions that led to the inability of farmers to farm land in the mid-west
   1. When the winds came it created huge dust storms that blew East called Black Blizzards.

      Annotations:

      • Black Blizzard: A severe dust storm
      1. Many left the area creating ghost towns for a better opportunity in CA

1. Roosevelt ordered the banks closed creating a bank holiday
   1. The bank holiday stopped the stream of people taking their money out of the banks.
      1. Officials created the Emergency Banking Act, which gave the federal govt. power to supervise banking.

1. Banking Act of 1933: Created the FDIC that guaranteed individuals deposits up to $5,000. This helped restore confidence in banks.

   Annotations:

   • This law created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
   1. It also limited the freedom of banks to trade in stocks and bonds

      Annotations:

      • This was keep banks from using depositor's savings for risky speculative investments.
      1. Securities and Exchange Commission was created to require companies to publish important facts about their business, it also regulated the activities of stock brokers.

         Annotations:

         • Speculation in Stocks had helped caused the 1929 crash. Part of the problem was ignorance.

1. Social Securities Act: Created a social insurance program that provides retirement income for workers 62 and older
   1. For those disabled from work they also received retirement income
      1. It also set up an unemployment insurance program for those out of work
2. National Industrial Recovery Act: It was designed to create jobs in construction through the Public Works Administration

   Annotations:

   • FDR didn't want to give up on the Free Enterprise System so he experimented, this was one of his grandest experiments. 
   • Was declared unconstitutional and in response Congress passed the Wagner Act, seen as a bill of rights for workers.
   • Wagner Act: the right to self-organization, join/assist labor unions, (and) to bargain collectively through representatives of their choosing.
   1. It's goal was to increase production while boosting wages and prices
      1. It targeted groups like business (fair competition), labor unions (organize and bargain collectively) & unemployed workers (jobs programs)
3. Tennessee Valley Authority : Created thousands of jobs building dams & bringing power to the Tennessee Valley

   Annotations:

   • This is on of the poorest regions in the country. The New Deal also created two new federal agencies that focused on housing issues, Home Owner's Loan Corporation & Federal Housing Administration.
4. Civilian Conservation Corps: Gave young men jobs planting trees and working on conservation projects.
5. Agriculture Adjustment Act: Paid farmers not to grow crops saving land, raising crop prices & creating jobs in the farming sector.

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   • Provided loans to farmers so they could pay their mortgages & stay on their land rather than join the jobless in cities.
6. Works Progress Administration: During the 2nd New Deal it was an agency created to put millions of people to work.

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   • Employed 7% of the American workforce.
   1. It created jobs building bridges, buildings and parks
      1. Later it created jobs for artists in creating murals in public buildings illustrating this time period in life.
7. Direct Relief

   Annotations:

   • During his campaign FDR promised to remember "the forgotten man" he did thiss by providing relief programs.
   1. Federal Emergency Relief Act: Provided funds to states and local relief agencies to give money to those suffering the most

      Annotations:

      • First time in American history, a federal agency provided direct relief to the unemployed.

1. As a result, Congress finally created a national flood program